Finding True North: 3rd in an increasingly misnamed standalone
by DavidB226Morris
Summary: Jack and Kate are back from their honeymoon. Juliet and Sawyer have settled down. Even Hurley's beginning to feel like the luckiest man alive. Everything's started to finally feel like life is back to normal for the Losties. So naturally, that's when John Locke reenters everybody's life.
1. Prologue

Finding True North

A (mostly) Lost Story

Third in a Series

By DavidB226Morris

Disclaimer: Here we go again, boys and girls. As anyone reading this fanfic knows, Jack, Hurley, Kate and everyone connected with that doomed flight Oceanic 815 doesn't belong to me, but rather is the property of J.J. Abrams, Darlton and everybody else who worked on _Lost. _Much of this story (like the previous two) will be _Grey's Anatomy _adjacent. Not as many will be showing up as before, but for the record, they belong to the people at Shondaland, and whatever nutballs are running that company.

Author's Note: I know what I said in my author's note in the final chapter of Fixing What Can Be Fixed, which as everyone who read it knows, wasn't supposed to be around either. But every time I finish rewatching _Lost _(which I tend to every two years or so), I keep getting stuck in just how great all of the characters were. And I'll be perfectly honest, part of me really couldn't help but feel sad at the fact that I'd written two whole _Lost _novels, and had barely written more than a few lines for one of the greatest characters of all time, John Locke. And while I do intend to write a story that takes place on the island one day (spoiler: it's going to involve the story of one of my _other _favorite characters, Eko), I really want to see if I could answer a question I left open: What happened to Locke when everybody left him behind? What did he learn? And what would persuade him to leave? And I'll admit, I like the universe I've created – it's kind of a real-life flash sideways. So I figured what the hell?

This story will deal more with the island than the other two, but in flashback more than anything else. (And really, what's a _Lost _story without flashbacks). I'm going to deal with quite a few of the characters from Seattle Grace, but this is far less of a crossover. And while the characters will deal with the island, don't work. This is Locke, not Jeremy Bentham. They're not going back. There will be island adjacent drama, but no island.

So far, my Lost stories have been among my most popular. I hope you'll continue to review them as much as before.

Prologue

SEATTLE SPACE NEEDLE

"Seriously Freckles, if I'd known you were such a cheap date, I wouldn't have tried so hard on the island."

Kate had that smile on her face she only got with Sawyer. "I spent three years running from the law, James. I think it's pretty much established I've seen as much of the world."

"All the places you coulda gone on your honeymoon, and you pick Yosemite." James said playfully. "Doc, did you put so much effort into getting the girl of your dreams that you forgot to treat her like a princess?"

"For the last time, James, it was her idea," Jack said in a tone no one who'd spent any time after the plane crash thinking he could have _ever _used with James Ford. "And lest we forget, I think all of us have pretty much decided that if we never got on another plane for the rest of our lives, it would be too soon."

"He's got you there, dude," Hurley told him

Callie Torres watched the Oceanics engage in this byplay with a familiar smile. She'd only been to three of these get-togethers between the friends – only two since Kate and Jack's wedding two months earlier – but there was some part of her that still couldn't get used to the camaraderie. She'd been on staff at Seattle Grace for almost two years, and aside from Jack himself, she couldn't really remember, even on those rare occasions when they gathered for drinks at Joe's, if there'd ever been a time when they had seemed remotely this happy with each other. Hell, the dinners she'd had with her own husband had been filled with more tension than this.

Jack Shephard had come to Seattle Grace about a year and a half ago and, unlike everybody else she'd known at the hospital, had not announced his secrets to the world. It wasn't until CNN had run an anniversary story of the Oceanic rescue and reporters had descended on Seattle Grace en masse that the secret had come out. Even then, he'd been very reluctant to reveal exactly what had happened over the 100 days that the Oceanic survivors had been missing, believed dead.

It wasn't until the fall of that year that Callie had become acquainted with Hugo Reyes, Jack's closest friend on the island. Hurley, as he insisted everybody call him, had since become one of Seattle Grace's greatest benefactors. She had only recently learned that had it not been for the work of the Reyes Foundation, Seattle Grace might have had to merge with a local hospital, if not close its doors altogether. Webber had told her. Hurley, in his typical manner had not taken any credit for it

He had befriended her at the moment she had been at her lowest point, and had done nothing but listen to her problems. Then he'd asked her on a date. Slowly but surely, he had told her some of the secrets of what had happened – that the survivors had crashed on a mysterious island in the Pacific, that it had become clear very quickly that there was something paranormal about the island, and not long after that they were not alone on it. Jack had told her the rest in bits and pieces – how he had been forced into a leadership role he hadn't wanted, that there had been mysteries on that island that he either couldn't deal with or had compartmentalized for the sake of getting them rescued, that he'd had interaction with the Others on the island – one of whom was sitting across the table from her right now – and that they had finally gotten off the island. They'd held fast to a vow not to tell the world what they had seen, mainly so they could get back to some semblance of a normal life.

And even though you could hardly consider any life that involved the resident at her hospital 'normal', they had managed to do so. And in their own way, the survivors had done a lot of good for Seattle Grace. Jack had finally knocked some sense into the residents who had been causing the most trouble, and had been there for Stevens when she'd developed skin cancer that had spread to her brain. He'd been an integral part of therapy for her and Alex during the recovery process, though Callie was pretty sure there was nothing in the handbook about telling them all of their secrets. Juliet, who'd been a top notch fertility doctor before the island, had helped Dr. Montgomery realize her lifelong dream of having a baby, and was now on staff at the hospital. Both Jack and Juliet had made it very clear that they had no interest of taking Weber's job when he retired – they'd both gotten sick of leadership battles when they were on the island, thank you very much.

Of course, there was also the small matter that both were involved in serious relationships. Jack had waited for Kate to get out of prison, and they had gotten married. Juliet and James were engaged. And unlike so many other couples at the hospital that Callie had known – and sadly, been a part of - Jack and Juliet were determined to put their relationships _first. _They were the only attendings at the hospital who had negotiated in their contracts the ability to work _fewer _shifts than the rest. Every other attending thought they were nuts. Callie knew better. These people knew there were more important things than their careers. And the funny thing was, she was starting to feel the same way.

Callie knew she was extremely lucky to be let inside the inner circle. Much like the ways surgeons were supposed to, this group had a bond that let in very few other people. They'd let in Stevens and Karev, and to a degree Miranda, but they hadn't told anybody else what had really happened after the crash besides their loved ones. Sayid, who Callie was still getting to know, had told his wife Nadia. Juliet had told her sister. Claire had told her mother, and Hugo had told his. Beyond that, the circle had been rather closed within the survivors.

Admittedly, this was a far larger group that Callie had ever had before, and they made an effort to get together every week. Hugo, as was his want, was the linchpin. He still spent about half his week in LA – his friendship with the other survivors and his work with his foundation meant he did a lot of commuting. So every weekend, depending on their schedules, the group who lived in Seattle would go to LA, or vice versa. Most of the staff at Seattle Grace understood this, but Meredith and Christina in particular couldn't understand why the best spinal surgeon and one of the best fertility specialists in the country would break up their weeks for _friends. _It was things like this that made Callie seriously wonder just how deep the friendship between the two 'persons' really was.

Jack, however, had told her that he understood. "I was like them once. I was so focused on trying to be the best surgeon at the hospital that I let all my other relationships – including my first marriage – fall to the side. When she left me, Sarah told me that I was always going to need something else to fix. She had a point, but I don't think even she could see was that the person who needed the most fixing was myself. It's kind of terrifying to realize that it took a plane crash to basically get my life on track. I don't recommend it. And considering what Meredith in particular went through her first year here, she may have more problems then even she's willing to admit. I really hope Derek knows the job he's signed up for."

"And Christina?" she'd asked.

Jack shook his head. "She's always been clear on her goal. She wants to be the greatest surgeon in the world. And she'll probably walk over anybody and everybody in order to get there. She'll end up alone at the end of her life, but there are some people who can live with that. At one point, I was one of them. Now I just feel sorry for her." He hesitated. "Don't tell her I said that."

Callie smiled sadly. "She'd probably wear it as a point of pride."

And it was at these dinners – which the Seattle group tried to have every few days aside from the weekly reunions – that Callie felt the sorriest for her. This was a level of human connection that, for all their skills as surgeons, most of the doctors at Seattle Grace just didn't have. Indeed, Callie was reminded of a conversation she'd had with Sloan last year in which he'd told him Derek was his family, and he'd repaid that friendship by having an affair with his wife. They repaired much of the damage in the last year, but it still said a lot about them that had been the rule rather than the exception.

Indeed, it was that entire mindset that had led to what she was about to do next. "Excuse me," she said, tapping her spoon against her wineglass.

They all quieted, even though only Hugo knew what she was about to do next.

"I know I don't participate as much in these discussions as everybody else," She looked at Claire. "Some of you have pointed that out in the past."

"How do you know I just wasn't trying to get you to babysit?" Claire asked.

"You know what her schedule is like," Juliet said.

"Guys come on," Hurley said, in a rare serious tone. "Go ahead."

"I realize just how insular your circle is," she said slowly. "And now that I know what all of you went through, I understand why. And it's for that reason, I'm grateful that you've let me in. My family was never that big. And as Jack and Juliet can testify, it's really hard making friends as a surgeon. Especially at this hospital. So I can't begin to tell you how glad I am to be one of you."

The silence seemed to go on a little longer than necessary. Callie was actually a little grateful that Hurley broke it up. "Sawyer, are you crying?"

"No," James said a little too quickly. Juliet looked at him. "Shut up!"

"My goodness," Kate said with an impish smile on her face. "Was I in prison so longer that James Ford managed to get in touch with his feminine side?"

"There was something in my eye," James said in a tone that other people might've once considered threatening.

"They're called tears, James. If you like, I can explain the exact biological process that leads to their production." Juliet said mockingly.

"Why did you insist so hard that we take her back with us?" James asked imploringly.

And the mood was back to normal.

CEASAR CHAVEZ MIDDLE SCHOOL

All of the Oceanics had needed a fair about of therapy when they had gotten back to LA. Walt, understandably, had needed more than most. The fact that he'd ended up spending several months in a mental institution had paradoxically meant he needed more.

Hurley had been a huge help. He'd convinced Dr. Brooks, the man who had been his therapist at Santa Rosa, to come in for several sessions. Brooks had been more than understanding, and Walt had gone into a fair amount of detail in regard to the various traumas he'd suffered while on the island. Talk and a certain amount of medicine had helped.

Of course, the fact he and his father had finally been allowed to reunite three months helped even more. It had taken a lot of work, but the rest of the survivors had been satisfied that Michael had met the conditions they had set forward. Helping Des and Penny come back to the real world had won over most of them as well. It would probably be asking far too much for the two of them to ever have a normal father and son relationship – no one who had been through what had happened on the island was sure they'd ever have something approaching normal again – but they were finally on the right track.

As for Walt's being 'special', he was beginning to think that might be something he could now deal with. Hurley and Sawyer in particular had been a big help when it came to deal with his powers, and he was beginning to think that wasn't going to be much of an issue either. He knew he'd probably have to deal with it more when he got older, but he had his father, and he had his friends.

And now that he was going to school again, he was actually starting to meet friends his own age, something he'd never had a lot of even before the plane crash. It helped that he was finally staying in the same place for a protracted period of time, and the fact that he was actually something of a celebrity was a bonus in a city obsessed with them. Because they didn't know about his psychic powers, that was actually a bonus.

Walt was feeling good about himself for the first time in awhile. So when he was about to go out to have lunch, and he got one of his twinges for the first time in nearly six months, it almost frightened him a little. There was nothing about the flash – indeed, it could really be considered friendly – but the fact that it was happening at all was enough to alarm him.

Nevertheless, he knew how to handle it, and told his friends that he couldn't eat with them today. "I just got a call from an old friend, " he said. "Which was both true and deceptive.

He walked across the street slowly, with an eerie calmness that he'd had with so many of his flashes before. And sure enough, there he was. He looked a lot cleaner than he had the last time he saw him, but it was the same man who'd taught him backgammon and how to throw a knife.

"Hey John," he said.

"Hello, Walt," said John Locke.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

John had always seemed pretty relaxed when Walt had known him – he'd had this bizarre calm that had unsettled just about all the other survivors. So it was odd that Walt could tell that he actually seemed a little nervous for probably the first time since he'd known him.

"How long have you been back?" Walt asked.

"About two months," Locke said. "I'm sorry that I haven't reached out to you or any of the others, but I've been busy with a couple of things."

Walt had been a little distracted by the fact that his friend was wearing what amounted to work clothes instead of the hunter's apparel he'd been used to from his friend. Then he saw that something else different. He was wearing a wedding band.

"You got married?" Walt was genuinely surprised.

Walt had seen Locke smile many times when he was on the island, but there was something different about something his thirteen year old mind didn't have the vocabulary for. Some of his friends might have been able to put into words a lot easier. Before his smile had always seemed a little out of place – almost like that of a fanatic who has seen God. This smile was purer, happier – rather than a joy of the zealot, but something more human.

"Her name is Helen. I knew her… before," Locke said knowingly. "She was the only person I met who believed I wasn't a failure. And even after I betrayed her for the wrong person, she never stopped believing in me." He looked at Walt. "I'm guessing you know who she was to me."

Walt nodded. "Yeah. She came to Seattle – to Jack, mostly – asking about you. As it turned out, it saved her life."

"I know." Locke said. "She's the reason I came back."

Walt had always been able to tell that there had been something that his friend had not been telling him, and Locke had always been good at reading him.

"Well, not the only reason," Locke admitted. "A lot happened in the year and a half I was on the island. It's a very, very long story, and I imagine you and the rest know at least some of it."

"Bits and pieces." Walt replied. "How much of it has to do with the Others and Charles Widmore?"

"To be honest, I don't know," Locke admitted. "How much of what was going on between Ben and Widmore did your father and the rest of them tell you?"

Apparently Locke didn't know everything. "My father and I have only been living together for the last few months," he said slowly. "He basically spent the year before that in an exile from the rest of us."

Walt gingerly explained what had happened when he and his father had come back from the island – how he'd initially not been able to forgive his father, how he'd spent some time in Bellevue, how the remaining survivors had meted out justice, rather than punishment, on the man who had betrayed them.

"It's better now," he assured his friend, "and Hurley has been keeping me up to date on what's been going on. They figured, given everything happened to me when the Others took me, it was silly to keep treating me like a child."

Locke was looking out ahead. "I can't help but think at least some of this is my fault," he told Walt. "After Michael and the rest came across the island, and they told me what happened, I didn't do a damn thing to help save you. Even when your father came back with that rescue mission which something sound fishy about to me, I was so obsessed with that stupid button, I didn't even offer to help them. Maybe if I had, everything wouldn't have gone so horribly wrong."

Walt looked at him. "Did you make the sky turn purple?"

"No," Locke said. "But I set up the circumstances so it would have to. Desmond – I'm guessing by now you've at least met him?" Walt nodded, "he did that. If it weren't for him…" He trailed off.

"Sawyer tried to make a similar apology, too" Walt told him. "A lot of things that happened on that island were so much a result of us not trusting each other. Not wanting to tell the people we should've trusted with our lives what happened to us. We didn't start talking about what happened to us until we got back. I have a feeling it really helped us more."

Walt took a deep breath. "The miracle that you said happened the day after the plane crash," he swallowed, "it's cause you were in a wheelchair on the plane?"

Locke looked right at him. "Did James tell you that?"

"Yeah, but we would've found out eventually." Walt paused. "Mr. Locke, why didn't you tell anybody?"

"I did," Locke looked off into the distance. "I told Boone the day before he died." He shook his head. "Boone was the only person who survivor who really believed me. Who followed with me without question. When he died, I tried to say it was for some kind of higher purpose. 'He was the sacrifice the island demanded.' God, the arrogance of it. No wonder Jack thought I was crazy. No wonder nobody trusted me."

"I believed in you, John." And even after everything that had happened, it was still the truth.

"The problem was, Walt, even though you were special, and I knew the island had chosen you, I couldn't bring myself to let a child get involved in this struggle." Locke paused. "And because I was foolish enough to believe that I was following some kind of higher purpose that the island alone was telling me. I made my quest everybody else's problem, and that was wrong of me."

"Were you wrong, John?" Walt asked.

"That's why I'm here, "Locke admitted. "I need to talk to the rest of us."

Walt could think of only one reason. "Do we need to go back?"

"No," Locke said quickly. "That's one of the reasons I left in the first place. The island is safe now. Safer than its been in a very long time. That being said, I think the rest of you deserve to know what exactly happened there, and why we were brought there."

"You have answers." It was a surprising statement, considering Locke had spent most of his time on the island plunging ahead blindly.

"I won't pretend that I have all of them. And - you have to make this clear to the rest – I was wrong about a lot of things. I was right about a lot of them, but I was wrong about just as many."

There was a long story there, but Walt seized on the most important thing to him. "Why come to me? Why not Hurley or Jack?"

"Because you were pretty much my only friend on the island," Locke said sincerely. "I figured you would be the only person who'd be genuinely glad to see me."

"That's not entirely true." Walt told him. "Your name did come up in a lot of the talk about the island. None of them hate you, John. At least not any more. I guess the major problem is, we didn't understand."

Locke paused. "Does Jack feel the same way?"

Even at ten, Walt could tell how much tension there had been between the two of them. "I think he's a lot more willing to listen than he was before. I guess he wants to know why you just disappeared like that."

Locke considered this for several second. Then he took out a pen and a piece of paper. "This is the number where you can reach me in Tustin. I realize everybody's got a lot of questions, but I think it would be best if we did it all in the same place. Then we can answer them together."

Walt somehow wasn't surprised Locke didn't have a cell phone yet. He couldn't help but ask: "Did you tell Helen what happened?"

"Just about," John said. "Considering everything that happened between us before, she deserved to know."

That, more than anything else convinced Walt Locke was being sincere. "All right. I'll tell everybody else. It's good to see you again, John." He took the paper.

Locke still hesitated for a moment. "When the Others had you, did you try to project yourself somehow?"

It was a strange question to ask, but Walt did answer. "A couple of times, I tried to make Vincent see me. Try to get him to warn you."

Locke nodded. Clearly, this was just a warm-up. "Did you ever try to project yourself when you left this island?"

That was an even stranger question, but Walt still answered it. "I never even tried."

"I didn't think so. Thank you." He started to walk back to his car.

"Why did you ask me that?" Walt demanded.

"I'll tell you when we're all together."

**SEATTLE**

"God, why the hell can't that bald bastard ever stay put?"

It had been less than twenty-four hours since Walt had told his father that Locke was back. While not exactly wild about it – Michael had never been John's biggest fan – he understood the significance and had called Hurley. Hugo, though not exactly crazy about the news himself – Locke had always creeped him out a little – had told Michael to tell everybody in LA, and he'd tell everybody in Seattle. The news had not exactly gone over well, though the person Hurley had figured would be the most upset was not who he'd thought it would be.]

"I shoulda known better," James was walking back and forth rapidly, much like he'd been ever since the Seattle contingent had gotten to Jack's home. "You get comfortable, you settle down, you actually begin to think you're happy, and then, 'Hee'res Johnny!"

"You were actually happy on the island?" Juliet said calmly. "Maybe you had more in common with Locke then you thought."

"You know what I mean," James said, waving his hands wildly.

"Actually I don't, James," Kate said, trying to take up her old role of Sawyer-whisperer. "Locke told Walt that he has no intention of bringing us back t0 the island."

"Well, of course, that what he tells us _now," _James said, not slowing in his pacing a bit. "But keep in mind, last we saw him, he was working for _them. _Clearly, all he wants to do is get all of us in the same place, then his people will be waiting with those damn tranq darts, they'll put us all to sleep, and we'll wake up on that damn island again!"

"Dude, I came up with some pretty wild theories when we were there, and even I gotta tell you, that's pretty out there," Hurley said calmly.

James turned to Jack. "Come on, Doc. You know how out there Mr. Clean was. Tell me I'm crazy!"

"I'm not a mental health professional, James," Jack, surprisingly, was taking all of this remarkably calmly. "And I'll admit that it's very strange that Locke would show up after all this time. But I also know that the Locke we all knew would have rather died on that island than lived a full life here. The fact that he has gotten married and told his wife everything that happened pretty much means we're not dealing with the same John Locke anymore."

"You can't use reason and logic with that guy," James was starting to sound desperate now.

"I also know that as big a problem I had with Locke when we were on the island, you left bearing a much more reasonable reason for hating him," Jack reminded him. "One you weren't willing to confess to us until six months ago. So why don't you stop wearing a hole in my carpet and tell us the _real _reason you don't want to see Locke?"

James finally stopped moving.

"You still think he made you kill Cooper?" Claire said gently.

James was quiet – an attitude that didn't naturally fit him. "He didn't make me do anything," he said slowly. "I'd been hunting that man for thirty years. When I found him, I had no intention of just making him read the letter." James was quiet for a while. He snuck a look at Juliet that the rest of them didn't quite understand. But there had to have been some quiet encouragement in it, because he went on. "I was always going to kill the bastard. In a bizarre kind of way, Locke did me a huge favor."

"So why are you still pissed at him?" Juliet asked calmly.

"After I saw the life disappear from his eyes," James said slowly, "when he was dead, I was that little boy who somehow thought killing this man would bring his parents back. When it didn't happen, I realized my life and everything I had done since then had been nothing." He looked at Kate. "That's why I was so pissed at you when I came back to camp." He turned to Juliet. "And it's why I shot Tom after he surrendered."

Neither woman needed to say anything. They both understood Sawyer far too well to have to explain.

"Locke didn't make me kill the bastard. But he sure as hell set it up so that I'd be in a place to do it." James said quietly. "I'm still pissed at him for that."

Jack considered this. It was, all things considered, a far more concrete reason to hate John Locke than arguing over pushing a button. And he'd been right about that.

Jack picked his next words carefully. "There's something I never got around to asking you, even after all this time. After you recovered from your injuries, you made us think that the Others had attacked Sun."

James visibly flinched at this. He'd done some pretty crap things on the island, but this was pretty low on the list. "Yeah."

"You then spent the next day, conning everybody – Kate and Locke especially – that Ana Lucia and I were making a play for the guns. Then you became the new sheriff in town." Jack paused. "Which pretty much meant that you gave us a gun whenever we asked for them. And when I finally wanted them back, you basically didn't put up a fight. So why'd you do it in the first place? I've never understood that."

"Join the club, Doc," James admitted. "How close was I to dying when the preacher man brought me back to the hatch?"

"I don't know. But absent the healing powers of the island, and any medicine, I think you would've been dead in twenty four hours." Jack told him bluntly.

James took that in. "While I was recovering, everybody else started looking at me like I was a hero. Kinda dumb, since the only thing I'd done was nearly get myself killed. And I guess I didn't like the idea of other people liking me." He looked at Kate. "Guess you were right about that, Freckles." He turned back to Jack. "Not that I don't appreciate the replaying of Sawyer's Crappiest Hits, but what's this got to do with Locke?"

"You humiliated Locke. You made me look like an idiot, too, but I already didn't like you." Jack said. "Locke was in a bad mental place back already, and as you'll recall, the next day Henry Gale made our acquaintance, and pretty much spent the next week playing him like a piano. Which basically made him so unsure of himself, he destroyed the button. Which turned the sky purple. Now, I'm not saying he set you up to kill his father _purely _out of some act of petty revenge, but I don't think he picked your name out of a hat either."

James took this in. "I managed to get Gandhi that pissed off at me?" he said. "Man, I must've been a special kind of asshole on the island."

"You were, James, you were," Hurley assured him.

"The best," Kate said.

"And if Scotty is on the level, if he hadn't been there, the world could've been destroyed?"

"I'm still not open-minded enough to accept that possibility," Jack told him, "but the side effects were pretty serious as it was. At the very least, it could've gotten him killed."

James considered this. "You in a position that you think you could forgive him?" he asked Jack.

That was the question of the day. "'Forgive' is a strong word, but I'm definitely willing to listen to him now," he finally said.

"What about you, Blondie?" James asked Juliet. "You've got as much a reason to bear a grudge against him as the Doc."

"Thought about that," Juliet said. "All things considered, I was more inclined to blame Kate than John. But I think we worked that out."

"We beat each other to a pulp, and you pretended you were handcuffed to me," Kate reminded her.

"You did dislocate my shoulder," Juliet said. "In any case, the way I see it, all you did was postpone our trip home by about two weeks. I let go of that grudge a long time ago, I'm pretty sure I forgave John, too." She paused. "Though I _really _want to hear his explanation."

"Me too," Hurley admitted.

James looked at his friends for a moment. He turned to Hurley. "Mike told everybody in LA."

"By now, yeah."

"James was silent. "You still got that visual for your phone?" he asked.

"Uh, yeah."

James looked at Jack. "I think y'all agree that this ain't one of those things you can decide for everybody?" Jack nodded. "Then I think we need to get all connected and do a straw poll. Make sure we're all on the same page."

Jack couldn't exactly argue with that. Some of them might have individually gotten past their issue with Locke, but collectively was a different story. Besides, he'd made a lot of bad decision on his own already. He looked at Hurley. "How long do you think it'll take?"

"Getting everybody in LA at my place?" Hurley asked. "I think we should wait 'til tonight."

**7:30 PM**

It turned out it took less than three hours to get everybody in the same place at the same time. They all understood the significance of this, and realized that they make a sound decision.

The only insistence that Jack made was that no one who hadn't spent time on the island could be involved in the process. They could find out afterward. Even Hurley understood the logic here.

"All right," Jack said. "We all know why we're here. Now I think there's validity in hearing what Locke has to say. But it's no exaggeration that a lot of us had issues with him, and I'm willing to bet some of us still do now. I'm opening the floor to see what we all think."

Not surprisingly, everyone in LA looked at Michael. Next to Jack, he'd probably borne the most hostility to Locke then any of the other survivors.

Michael thought for a long moment. "It's complicated," he admitted. "I wasn't exactly the most rational man when it came to characterizing people. In a weird way, I guess I was jealous of him." He looked at his son. "You seemed to bond with him a way that you weren't doing with me," he told Walt. "I already had issues about having to take custody of you, and now being stuck on a tropical isle, Hell, even after he saved us from that damn polar bear, I didn't trust him. Then again, I didn't exactly make a lot of friends either."

He looked at Jin and Sun. "You got any opinion on this?"

The Kwons looked at each other a little sheepishly. "Honestly, I don't think either of us really thought much about Locke when we were on that island," Sun admitted. "I don't think I spoke to him more than three or four times the entire time we were on the island. He always treated me decently, but I never quite trusted him. "

"I couldn't exactly have a conversation with him," Jin reminded them. "And it's not like he went out of his way to be friendly with any of us."

Sayid thought very carefully. "I never quite trusted the man," he told them. "He always seemed to be having a conversation with someone who wasn't there. And almost every interaction I had with him when we were on the island, I vehemently disagreed with him. It wasn't just that we had separate agendas. I genuinely thought the man was disturbed, and that was before he starting destroying everything that could've gotten us off the island. He may have said he doesn't want us to go back to the island. I'm not inclined to believe him."

Walt spoke up. "I understand why you feel the way you do," he said slowly. "But none of you actually talked to him. Mr. Locke sounded sorry for everything he did. And if he really was untrustworthy now, he wouldn't have just… left me alone after we talked. He always treated me like an adult. Now maybe that's not a reason to trust him, but he never lied to me when I was on the island. I don't think he'd have started now." He looked at his father. "I really think we can trust him."

"All right," James said slowly. "That's one vote in favor, two more or less against and two 'no opinion'" He looked towards Jin and Sun. "Am I right on that or do you think different?"

Jin nodded. Sun thought for a second, and then nodded agreement as well.

"All right," James said. "I've already been through my issues with the Philosopher King. And as much as I don't blame him for what happened to me, that don't mean I necessarily trust him either. The guy was just doing too much strange shit on that island for me to listen to him." He looked at Juliet. "Blondie? You got an opinion on this?"

"I never met the man, even when he blew up the sub." Juliet told them. "I can't vote on this. Kate?"

Kate thought for a long minute. "I need to think on it, still. " She looked at her sister-in-law.

Claire didn't hesitate. "John was always nice to me," she said simply. "He brought me back to safety after I went missing, he carved Aaron's first crib, and he helped me in the early days with Aaron, even when I was disagreeing with Charlie. I know you all have doubts, but I really think he's worth listening to."

Hurley thought for a moment. "I know I thought he was kind of creepy when I was on the island, but he always took me seriously. Whenever I went into the jungle with you guys, he never complained, even though I had to have been slowing him down. He helped Charlie through his addiction, and even though they had their troubles, he was there for him. And I just don't think he'd come all this way to drag us back."

Hurley and Claire's votes really did count for a lot. James figured Kate would still wait to see how her husband came down before she made her decision. Kate spoke up anyway. "I made as much of an effort to get to know John as anybody else on the island, and he really did try to help me a lot of the time. But the last time I spoke with him, he was drinking the Others Kool-Aid. Hell, he was trying to get me to join them. Considering everything he did when I was trying to get him to help us, I just can't bring myself to listen to him now."

Jack thought for a long moment. "I know my vote doesn't count for as much as it used to," he finally said. "And I'll go along with the majority. But I really think we need to hear John out. I know that I was his biggest critic when we were on the island, but he was telling me things that I didn't want to believe at the time. He was right about a lot of things when we were there. Not about leaving the island, but pretty close to everything else that I – and let's face, pretty much everybody else – wanted to ignore. There was a lot of craziness there. And if he can explain what was going on, I think we owe it to him to listen."

Juliet considered this for a moment. "Right now, the vote's four in favor, four against, and three not voting. Since I'm guessing that none of us are going to change our minds, any chance anybody in LA feels differently?"

There was a long pause. Finally Sun raised her hand. "My opinions on John Locke haven't changed. However, I want answers. And if Locke's in a position to give them, I'll listen."

Jin looked a little surprised, but didn't put any argument.

"All right," Jack said. "Since we've decided, I think we need some ground rules. Do we all meet him and hear him out or just the ones who voted for it?"

There was clearly a bit of confusion on this, but finally Kate spoke up. "I don't trust him, but I didn't trust Juliet initially either. Considering that she leveled with us pretty quickly, I'm willing to at listen to Locke. Unless there's more about the island that you still haven't told us?"

Juliet looked at them. "They never really treated me like I was one of them, even after three years. When we left the island, they were all but saying Locke was going to be the chosen one, whatever the hell that means. I have to at least consider that they might've at least let him in on some of the secrets. And if they did, I want to know what the hell they are."

Everyone else seemed okay with this, even Michael. "You have his number?" Jack asked Michael.

"Wait," Hurley said. "We should tell Desmond and Penny too."

No one argued with that. "What time is it in London?" Juliet asked.

"About 4 a.m. " Sayid said. "Should we have let him vote on this?"

"Wouldn't matter," Jack reminded them. "He and Locke had that special bond over the button. Same kind of blind faith. He would've want to know what the man saw."

Everybody looked at James to see if he disagreed. "Doc's right," James said, looking at Juliet. "When Jack brought you back to camp, he was the only one who asked what why Locke wasn't there. Hell, he was the only one who seemed upset he was gone. "

"He'd even be willing to fly across an ocean to find out?" Walt, the only one who still didn't know Desmond that well, asked.

"Dude, it's the Atlantic, not the Pacific," Hurley reminded him.

"Besides, he was in a boat crash, not a plane," Jack pointed out. "I'll call him before my next shift at the hospital. Tell him to come."

Of course, none of them had any idea what would be happening in London by then.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

**423 Cheyne Walk**

**Knightsbridge**

"You sure you want to be here?" Daniel Faraday asked his fiancée.

"You've asked me that question half a dozen times already, Daniel," Charlotte Staples Lewis responded. "My answer isn't going to change from when we were in the tube fifteen minutes ago."

Dan seemed a little more twitchy than usual. "I'm sorry I'm pestering you like this, Charlotte," he said nervously. "I know this is a little more than you signed up for."

"You don't know what you've signed up for yet," Charlotte said gently. "Isn't that the whole reason we're here in the first play? So you can find out about your family?"

"I've already met your mother and your sisters," Dan told her. "Believe me, that's a better family than I ever had. Maybe I should quit while I'm ahead." He looked at her. "The truth is, I don't know if she's going to be able to tell me what I need to know. I mean, we've all seen the news. She's got more parent issues than I have, and that's saying a lot."

"You're not going to find out if you don't ring the bell," Charlotte pressed.

"Schrodinger's cat. As long as I don't press it, I don't know the answer. "Dan said. "You know, when I studied at school, I thought it was a scientific principle that had no conduit in real life. Now, I'm beginning to see its charm."

Charlotte gently squeezed his arm. "You're stalling."

Dan took a deep breath, and pressed the bell. There was a long enough pause for him to once again considering scurrying away. Then the door opened, and an attractive woman roughly his age answered the door.

"Mr. Faraday?" Penny Hume said.

"Ah, call me Dan." He nervously stuck his hand out. Penny shook it. "I hope you won't mind, but I brought my fiancée Charlotte with me."

"Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Hume," Charlotte said.

"Call me Penny. Although it still does give me a thrill when anyone calls me by that name." She gestured. "Come in."

The flat was one of those luxury ones that even a successful musician like Dan would've had trouble getting. Its majesty stood out, even though there were still a lot of boxes and chaos about.

"Forgive the mess. My husband and I just moved back in a month ago. We've been traveling for the last couple years, and we're trying to readjust to life back in London." Penny gestured towards the lounge chairs. "Can I offer you anything to drink?"

"Well, it seems a bit clichéd, considering I haven't been England for awhile, but I could do with some Earl Gray," Dan said.

"I'd prefer Darjeeling myself," Charlotte said.

"Could you live with something closer to instant?"

"Isn't that close to heresy?" Charlotte joshed.

"Haven't been here long enough to get the good stuff," Penny told them. "Just give me a moment."

Just then, her husband walked into the room. "Charlie seems to be good, but if you could keep it down…" He trailed off. "I'm sorry. Penny told me she had guests on the way, I didn't realize it was now."

"It's all right, Des. This is Daniel Faraday and his fiancée Charlotte. Would you be a dear and charm them while I bring out some refreshments?"

Desmond would've been more than willing to do this, but he knew from their discussion a couple of nights ago that his wife was a little nervous about this meeting. She wasn't sure what it was about, only that she had a sinking feeling it had to do with another one of her father's 'side projects', and that she was really afraid of what the consequences might be. "Sure thing, Penny."

As she left the room, he took in her guests. Charlotte was a very striking redhead, and in a different world, he might've been taken by her. But it was the young man with a beard that had him focused. "Forgive my impertinence, Mr. Faraday, but prior to this trip, have you ever been in London before?"

Dan actually seemed grateful for the distraction. "Yes, actually. My company did a couple of tours here in 2003."

Desmond quickly shook his head. "Couldn't be then. I was out of the country. Before then?"

Dan gave it some thought. "I studied at Oxford from 1992 until 1995. Were you in England then?"

"Aye," Desmond thought over that time – not exactly his favorite period to reminisce on, considering the aftermath. "I was here from the summer of 1995 until roughly the spring of 1996."

Dan then shook his head. "Sorry, couldn't have been then either. I actually dropped out before I got my PHD."

That pretty much scratched all the possibilities. "Sorry about that. It's just that I saw you, and I was sure I knew you from somewhere."

"It's certainly possible we do, but there's an excellent chance I wouldn't remember it even if we had." Dan hesitated. "When I was at Oxford, I was studying physics, particularly in the area of space-time. The last few months I was there, I was working on a thesis involving time travel."

Understandably, those last two words caught Desmond's interest. "You get anywhere with it?" he asked casually.

"Sort of. I had been working on a machine that I figured if I could adjust to the right amount of energy, I would be able to," he waved his hand 'unstick someone in time. I was very early in the testing stages, mainly working with white mice. I was getting nowhere with the project, which was at least part of the reason I dropped out. Which was a good decision for a number of reasons."

Now Desmond was curious for personal reasons. "What happened?"

"The machine used a lot of radiation. Because I was such a genius, I wore devices to protect my body but not my _head." _Dan shuddered at the memory. "A couple of years after that, I went to see a neurologist. He said due to the level of exposure, I was going to have problems with my short-term memory for awhile. Then he said I was lucky, because if I'd stayed at Oxford, I would have kept experimenting, which almost certainly would've led to irreversible brain damage."

Penny had reentered the room with the tea, and had caught the last exchange. "That's terrible."

Dan waved it off. "I won't deny it's irritating that I can remember a concerto I learned when I was eleven years old, but can't remember the name of someone who was playing with me the previous performance. I try to be an optimist, though – consider it proof positive that I made the right choice a decade ago giving up science for music."

"I guess so," Desmond said. "I'm sorry I brought it up."

"It's all right, Mr. Hume – Desmond, if it's all right," Desmond nodded. "I tend to blather on when I nervous, and as you can no doubt tell, this meeting probably has me as anxious as your wife."

"I'll be honest, Daniel, I'm still not sure why you wanted to meet with me in the first place," Penny said. "You said it had something to do with your family, but I can't for the life of me figure out why."

"I'll explain, but I must warn it's going to sound like more blathering for much of it," Dan looked at Charlotte for a moment, and found the inner strength to carry on.

"I guess I should start by saying I never had a very good relationship with my mother," he began. "She never told me who my father, she would never tell me much about her life before I was born, and to be perfectly blunt, there were times when I felt she never loved me. She would always treat me very coldly, and when she did talk to me, she always seemed to be keeping me at a distance."

Desmond briefly glanced at his wife, knowing that she'd had a very similar relationship with her own father.

"I was a gifted child. I always had a great mind, but my great love had always been music," Dan looked in the distance. "My memory may betray me at times, but I'll never forget the day everything changed. I was playing my favorite piece on the piano, and my mother came into the room, and said she wanted to talk to be. She said that when one has a great gift one must do everything in one's power to nurture it. I wasn't sure what she was talking about. Then she asked me how many times the metronome had ticked off since I began playing. I didn't even have to think about it. I told her '864'. She closed the lid on the piano, and told me that from then on, I must devote my life to science. I told her I thought I could make time. And she just said: 'If only you could.' I never understood what that meant as a child or an adult, but when I got home from school the next day, she'd told me she'd sold my piano."

That was a level of cruelty that Desmond wasn't sure even Charles Widmore would've been capable of.

"I almost would've preferred if she'd kept me at a distance, because for the next five years, all she did was drive me. Every moment I had from that point on, I had to be studying. No time for friends, no time for women, no time for anything else but school. I honestly think I may have spent more of my childhood at school and in the library not so much because she was pushing me too, but because it was a way to get away from her."

"That's a horrible thing to say, Dan," Charlotte said.

"There's a reason I've never introduced you to my mother," Daniel said calmly. "I'm still not sure why I didn't join a band or start doing drugs or some kind of adolescent rebellion. I think there was some part of me that really believed, however unscientific the logic, that if I achieved these goals, my mother would love me. Even all the evidence weighed against it – I graduated high school two years early, she didn't even offer a word of congratulations. I went to Oxford, was on the track to become the youngest doctorate in the university's history. She visited twice in three years."

"What finally changed your mind?" Desmond asked.

Dan shook his head. "My last year, I got into my first serious relationship with a woman. Her name was Teresa Spencer. She had a good mind, and she could keep up with me intellectually. For the first time in my life, I actually felt happy. Then, about a month before I had to submit my final thesis, my mother came to visit me, and asked to take me to lunch. Teresa was with me, but she basically ignored her. I gently brought up to her that she'd been very rude to me, and she told me, I wasn't going to have time for women. My work should always come first."

Daniel's brow furrowed. "I just snapped. I almost wondered if she'd brought me to a restaurant not for congratulations, but so I wouldn't make a scene in public. It didn't work. I just sat there for a moment. 'I don't know why I ever thought you would change. It goes against every thing I've learned about science, and more importantly everything I know about you.'

"It was weird. Up until then, every time I talked with my mother she seemed so placid, as if she knew every argument I was going to make before I made it. For the first time in I don't know how long, she looked surprised. She tried to cover it up."

"You have to understand, Daniel,' she began. 'There are more important things - '

"Then being an actual mother for once?' I told her. 'You know, I have a sneaking suspicion that if I was standing at the dais in Oslo, accepting the Nobel Prize, you'd be in the audience looking disappointed. I don't know why you've been pushing me all my life, but it sure as hell isn't for the good of mankind.'

"She didn't seem to have an answer for once, and I wasn't going to give her a chance to get one. 'You know, I'm actually glad we had this little chat,' I told her. 'Because at least, I now know what to do with my life. And it doesn't involve making you happy.'" I got up from the table, and I stormed out. I haven't seen my mother since, and I almost consider it a blessing.'"

Penny looked impressed. Desmond knew his wife was probably wondering how much their lives would've been different if he'd been able to get out from under her father's thumb before.

"I probably made impulsive decisions before, but maybe it's because of my own science that I don't remember making one _that _big. I went back to the dormitories at Oxford, apologized to Teresa, and told her I'd just had a big blowup with my mother, and that I just didn't want to follow through on my doctorate. She was as stunned as my mother was, but much more supportive. Unfortunately, that only went so far."

"She was devoted to science?" Penny asked.

"She was, but we could've worked through that. No, the problem was I wanted to completely uproot my life, and she couldn't understand that. She'd had similar issues with her parents about her career path, and she was determined to stay the course – she'd already sacrificed a lot. We spent the next few months trying to make it work, but I was on a different path now. In that sense, my mother was right one last time – there wasn't enough time in my life for Teresa."

"I went back to the States, and enrolled in Julliard. I may not have played the piano much in the last eight years, but it didn't take that long for to regain my touch. And I wasn't the same kind of prodigy I had been with physics that I was with music, but I did managed to complete a four year program in only two. Things have been going upwards ever since."

"Well, I'll admit all of this is fascinating, Dan," Penny said slowly, "but I'm still not sure what it has to do with me."

Dan took a deep breath. "When I began my career as a professional pianist, I changed my last name to Faraday. I didn't want to have anything that I might even have the scent of my mother's influence on my new career. My mother's name is Eloise Hawking."

Now Desmond felt a faint tremor – he knew the name. "How did you know she was working for Penny's father?" he asked slowly.

"With all the uproar about your father's –" Dan struggled for the right euphemism – 'improprieties in the last year, I was looking on line about the story, and I saw something that rang a faint bell. My mother and I lived in Los Angeles when I was a child. Not for long, just a couple of years. My mother was not a religious woman. I need to make that clear. But I remember that she went to a church at least a dozen times in the last six months we were there. The only time I ever got up the nerve to ask her what she was doing in there, the only thing she would say was: "Seeking absolution.'"

"When they revealed a listing of his properties, I saw it. It was the same church."

"So you think your mother knew my father." It wasn't a question.

"I don't know," Dan admitted. "It's not like she ever mentioned him when I was growing up. I don't know how or why she would even know Charles Widmore, much less work for him. But I think it's just too big a coincidence."

When Sayid and Sawyer had visited that church last year, they had mentioned Eloise Hawking to them when the whole mess ended. The police had raided the church only to find it deserted, with no trace of Hawking anywhere. However, Desmond had gotten something from it. He went into the next room, and found one of the files they'd had.

"Daniel," he said slowly as he showed him a photograph, "is this your mother?"

Daniel Faraday had a slight build, and looked pretty pale already. When Desmond showed him Eloise Hawking's picture, he actually had to take a firm grip on Charlotte's arm. "What was she doing there?"

Desmond sighed. Now that the whole affair with the island was over, he really didn't want to drag anyone else into it. Especially such a nice seeming man like Dan, who had come to them for help. Nevertheless, the man wanted answers, and considering he'd been on the other side of this, he was more than entitled to them. He looked at his wife.

"Daniel," Penny began slowly, "much of the story about my father's activities was a cover story. Something that would be far more palatable to the media and to the public. I had no interest in doing so – it ruined a lot of lives, after all – but if we hadn't, there would've been a much larger story with more far-reaching consequences."

"I don't understand," Daniel said slowly.

"As far as you know, did your mother ever travel to the South Pacific?" Desmond asked.

"Not that I remember, no." Dan said thoughtfully, "but she never did tell me what she did before I was born. Why?"

"It's hard to explain, even to someone who seems to be a genius on every front," Desmond looked at his wife, who made a silent ocean, "but most of what my father-in-law was involved with had to do with a mysterious island in the Pacific Ocean. One, that if you believed the inhabitants, had bizarre, possibly supernatural properties."

Daniel looked at him. So did Charlotte, who had said very little since Dan started talking. "And I'm guessing the reason you know that is because one of you was there," he said slowly.

"I was there," Desmond said simply. "For more than three years. Penny rescued me from it two years ago."

Both Daniel and Charlotte were smart people. Desmond wasn't certain which one would make the connection first. It turned out Charlotte did. "That crash two years ago. Oceanic 815," she said slowly. "The one your father was accused of staging."

Penny nodded. "Hold on to this woman, Dan," she said quietly. "She's at least as smart as you are."

Daniel thought for a moment. "How did you end up on it?"

Well, he'd been nice enough to tell his story. It was reasonable enough to return the favor. Desmond began to talk, starting just after his decision to participate in Charles Widmore's race around the world. How his boat had ended up in a storm. How he'd been 'rescued' by a man named Kelvin, who put him in a station called the Swan where he'd lived for three years, pushing a button that 'saved the world'. That it turned out this button had to do with the release of electromagnetic energy that could be very dangerous. How he'd thought he would be stuck there forever.

At this point, however, Charlotte interrupted. "I'm sorry, did you say the Dharma Initiative was involved in building this station?"

"That's what the film said," Desmond looked at her. "Do you know about them?

"Sort of," Charlotte admitted. "A few years back, I was at the University of Michigan on a speech on the Bantu people. I was talking to this old timer, who'd clearly been around since Woodstock. He mentioned that in the early seventies he'd worked with these two grad students: Gerald and Karen DeGroot. They'd had some interest a utopian civilization – I guess it was some holdover from the sixties, and they'd gotten some money from a fairly shady source. They stayed on and off until about 1980 or so, and then they disappeared. I wouldn't have paid any attention to it, except when I looked at the records in Ann Arbor, there was no mention of the DeGroots ever having attending the University."

"Did he mention where the money came from?" Penny asked intensely.

"I don't recall." Charlotte looked at Penny. "It wasn't your father by any chance?"

"No," Penny said firmly. "You ever heard of the Hanso Foundation?"

"Hell, even I've heard of him," Daniel said. "He was a billionaire industrialist who supposedly made his fortune selling his money to his resistance factions during World War II. He set up the foundation in the late sixties to try and advance scientific thinking and set forth altruistic measures. When I was at Oxford, I remembered hearing about this scientist – Valenzetti, I believe his name was, who was trying to come up with some kind of equation that were key factors in world annihilation. It sounded like a version of the Grand Unified Theory, but it read more like a study in numerology to me."

Desmond didn't quite have the nerve to ask what exactly those numbers were. Even if they were the same numbers he'd spent three years entering into a computer, did it matter now?

"You don't sound like you thought very highly of him," he said instead.

"I don't," Dan admitted. "Hanso sounded like one of those billionaires who was trying to clean his hands of how he made his money by becoming an altruist."

"A lot of people sold munitions during the war," Penny said.

"It's more than that," Charlotte told them. "There were even darker rumors that the origins of the Hanso fortune date back to trafficking in slavery, decades after most nations had abolished it. Alvar Hanso may have been a philanthropist in his later years, but that doesn't make him a saint."

Now was not the time to bring up the Black Rock.

"But in any event, the Dharma Initiative set up on this island," Daniel told them. "And you ended up in one of their stations. Do you think my mother was involved in the Initiative in some way?"

"I don't know," Desmond admitted. "But in all candor, that's not why I had a picture of your mother in the first place. I have to warn you both, this is where the story shifts from the merely bizarre to completely ludicrous."

Dan and Charlotte looked at each other. "How do you know here?"

"I either met her two years ago, or ten years ago, depending on how you look at it." Desmond took a deep breath, and finished his part of the story, starting with when he turned the fail-safe key, and what had happened immediately afterwards."

Their visitors were silent for a long time. Charlotte's first question was for Penny. "Forgive my bluntness, but is that how you remember events?"

"Everything Des told me happened. None of that, however, explains what happened to _him." _Penny thought for a moment. "You mentioned in your experiments that you were trying to 'unstick' your subjects in time? What did that mean exactly?"

"I was trying to 'shift' the subjects, which were white mice by the way," Dan said slowly. "so that their bodies would stay in the same place, but their minds would be able to travel into the future. I know where you going, but I never got past the theoretical stage. Certainly nothing like what happened to Desmond."

"Never mind that," Desmond said that. "What about the rest of it?"

"The scientist in me says that what you are talking about is completely and utterly impossible. Even if it were possible theoretically, it never got beyond the testing phases in any study I knew of. " Daniel shook his head. "It doesn't pass the stink test." He paused. "But…"

"But" Penny urged.

"I know my mother." Dan said simply. "And even though it makes no sense why or how she'd know what she said, it sounds far too much like her, for someone who didn't know who she was before today."

This was incredibly strange, even considering everything Desmond had gone through for the years on the island. At that moment, his cell rang. He was about to send it to voicemail when he saw the called was Hurley. He looked at his watch. It was probably close to two in the morning there. Nothing good could be on the other end.

"Would you excuse me a moment?" he asked them, and left the room.

Daniel barely noticed. His mind was still reeling from the last half-hour. He turned to Penny and tried to get back to solid ground. "How much of this did you know about?"

"My father, Daniel, was an even colder man than your mother is," Penny said. "He never approved of Des in the first place, which is probably the real reason he broke up with me. Des has always had a great sense of honor. After he left me, he joined the Royal Scots Guards. After going through basic training, his regiment was sent to Chechnya. "She paused. "There was some kind of slaughter of a small village – of all the things he's gone through, he won't talk about that at all. All I know for sure is that he was sentenced to a year in the stockade. My father arranged it so that he intercepting every single letter he sent me. He was trying to make it seem like I'd forsaken him."

That was cruel on a level that even his mother wasn't capable of – at least, Dan hoped not.

"My father's foundation held a prize for a race around the world," Penny said slowly. "Desmond got in his head that the only way to get his honor back – which meant to getting my father's approval – was to win this race. I can't state with certainty that my father arranged it somehow so that he would be on the one place on earth I could never find him."

"But you found him anyway," Charlotte said.

"'With enough money and determination, you can find anyone'" Penny said. "I'm not going to lie, and say I didn't know what my father was up to all these years. I just had no idea of the scope of it. It took me nearly two years just to find out what my father was up to in the first place, and to figure out what to look for. Even then, I really didn't think I would ever find it until Desmond literally set up a flare. And he had no idea he was doing it at the time."

Daniel was putting things together. "When he turned that failsafe key."

Penny nodded. Just then, her husband walked back into the room with a perplexed look on his face. "Des? Who was that?"

"Hurley." Desmond looked a little shell-shocked.

"Did something happen?"

"Sort of," Des said slowly. "Locke is back from the island."

Penny was still a little confused. "Is this bad news or good news?"

"I'm not sure. And frankly, neither are the rest of them. They just found out two days ago, and have been figuring out their next move."

"Um, who's Locke?" Dan asked.

The Humes both jumped a little – this was apparently such big news, they'd forgotten they had company. For a moment, they engaged in mental conversation, trying to figure out what to say to these relative strangers. Finally, Desmond spoke. "He's one of the crash survivors."

Dan was still puzzled. "Why isn't this good news?"

"Because when I came to rescue everybody, he chose not to come back," Penny told them. "And from what little I know of the man, he spent his entire time on the island trying to make sure no one else could leave."

Now Dan and Charlotte were the one exchanging glances. "Maybe we should leave," Charlotte told her fiancée.

"No, I'm sorry about all this. You came for answers, and we obviously gave you far more questions than you wanted," Desmond said. "To be perfectly frank, everybody on the island seemed to feel the same way."

Dan still seemed reluctant to leave. "I realize that I've just dumped a new set of problems on you," he said slowly. "And you've been far more forthright than I ever expected you to be. Either of you."

"Dan, why did you really come here?" Penny finally asked. "You're clearly smart enough to have been able to worked out a lot of the answers by yourself, and you clearly didn't come here to beg for anything. So what kind of information did you think I had?"

Now Dan seemed really nervous. It took him a moment to gather himself. "I want to find out who my father is," he finally said. "And I guess I've spent the last few weeks hoping against hope that it isn't Charles Widmore. Everything I've heard about him over the years made him sound truly horrendous. And based on what you've told me over the past hour, he sounds even worse." He swallowed, and he honestly looked like he was going to start crying. "He sounds exactly like the kind of person my mother would've been attracted to."

Penny and Desmond wanted to comfort this total stranger, but they had no idea what to say. So naturally, Charlotte embraced him. "Family isn't necessarily who you're born too, Dan," she said comfortingly. "It's who cares about you. Worst care scenario, you still have me and mine."

Dan gathered himself. "I know," he said slowly. "I know."

The Humes now felt a bit better. "Dan," Penny said. "How long are you and Charlotte going to be in England?"

"At least another week," Charlotte said. "We were going to visit my family in Essex when this was over."

The two exchanged glances. "Obviously, Pen and I have to fly out to LA to meet with the rest of our friends," Des said slowly. "It's going to take at least a few days to resolve this, depending on what John has to say."

"Could we have your number so that we can reach you?" Penny asked. "We clearly have a lot to work through, and it's clearly we'll need to figure out our next steps."

Dan and Charlotte exchanged glances of their own before she nodded.

"Wait a minute," Charlotte said as he started writing. "This man who's causing all this uproar. His name is John Locke? Seriously?"

"It's not as odd as you'd think," Desmond said. "My middle name is David."

Charlotte took this in. "Fair point. And I suppose considering _my _middle name is Staples, I'm in no position to judge."

"Your father was a philosophy major himself?" Desmond joshed.

"Let's just say his favorite book was _The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe _and leave it at that," Charlotte clearly wanted to hang her head.

Penny took the number. "We're terribly sorry we have to leave you in the lurch like this," she said earnestly.

"No, it's more than all right," Dan got to his feet. "Clearly, I gave you a lot to deal with, and you've already got more than your share."

"I can assure you, Dan," Penny said. "This will not be our last conversation. If for no other reason that you've told me more about your own life in an hour than my father did in his entire lifetime."

"And, if you are… his son," Desmond said, "at least you have more family than you ever expected you would before."

Dan now looked like he would cry again, though for a completely different reason. "It's been good to meet you both," he said.

Desmond put forth his hand. "Maybe I haven't seen you in another life," he said, "but I'm glad to know you in this one, Dan."

Dan was several inches shorter and quite a bit more frail than Des, but when he pulled him in for a hug, Desmond didn't do anything to resist.


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**REYES RESIDENCE**

**Los Angeles**

"You're sure I can't get you and your friends anything to eat?" Carmen Reyes asked her son.

"Believe me, Ma, right now I don't think anybody's hungry," Hurley told his mother soberly.

It had been roughly thirty-six hours since the Oceanics had agreed to have their meeting with Locke. There was a consensual agreement that they will all meet at Hurley's place – they were all living comfortably, but the Reyes mansion by far had the largest living room.

Locke had been surprisingly flexible when it had come to meeting everybody's terms – he'd agreed to meet with all of them at once, that he would answer every question that he could about the island, and that he bore them no threat. He'd just had one condition – one that none of them could argue with.

"You sure it's alright that it's just your friends and Locke in the room?" Carmen asked.

"No, it makes sense, "Hurley admitted. "This conversation is going to deal with things that only people who know about the island are going to understand. He says it's fine if we tell the people we care about later, but he doesn't want to have to keep explaining. Says things are going to be complicated enough as it is."

"If it's half as messy as what you told me, I'd probably need some kind of chart to keep up," Carmen paused. "Is Callie all right with this?"

"She's not thrilled, but she understands," Hurley said honestly. "She said if Nadia and 7ou aren't going to be in the first tier, it doesn't make much sense for her to be."

"I knew she was a sensible girl," Carmen said admiringly. She looked at her son. "And are you okay with this? I know you always had mixed feeling about the man."

Hurley had been considering this ever since he'd learned Locke was back. "I think my problems were the same as everybody else's," he said slowly. 'Locke always seemed to be off on his own. He always acted like he was on a quest that none of us understood. Of course, now that I know what I do about him, that makes perfect sense. And if what Walt told us is true - and he has no reason to lie – I think the man's seen the error of his ways."

"And you're sure he hasn't come to try and convince you to come back to the island?" Carmen was really worried about this.

Hurley shook his head. "He made that clear too. Actually, he made it extra clear. He couldn't go back if he wanted to."

"What does that mean?"

And at that moment, the doorbell chimed. "I think we're about to find out," Hurley gathered himself. "Tell the Tranhs to say around. This is going to be a long conversation. We may not be hungry now, but we're probably going to need to eat by the time he finishes."

When John Locke entered the room the room quieted. This was understandable. It was one thing for some of them to say they'd worked through their issues with Locke, it was one thing to agree to hear him out. But the moment all of them saw the man again, the tension level went up considerably.

The last time some of them had seen the man, he had been blowing up Dharma stations and submarines. The last time the rest of them had seen the man, he had thrown a knife into the back of a defenseless woman, and had fired a shot at Jack. And of course, James' last encounter had ended with him garroting a man with a length of chain. It would've been really hard to forget, much less forgive all of that, even though more than two years had passed in that period, and they were now all on dry land. The only person who might have been willing to give John the benefit of the doubt was Desmond, and he might well bear a grudge for smashing the button, which put not just the island, but hell maybe the world in danger.

No one reacted for more than two minutes. No one seemed willing to even do so much as breathe. It wasn't so much as they were waiting for somebody to make the first move as for one person in particular.

So, one more time, the survivors of the island were looking towards Jack. And he did something that no one who had known both men on the island would have thought that either – Jack in particular – was capable of doing.

He walked up to him. "It's good to see you again, John," he said slowly, and very awkwardly drew him into an embrace. They knew on more than one level just how hard this was – even among the people who loved him, Jack Shephard had never been much of a hugger.

Locke was clearly as surprised as everyone else, but held it well. "Tell me the truth, Jack. Are you glad to see me or are you patting me down for knives?"

Claire couldn't help herself. She let out a giggle. She tried to suppress it, but everyone reacted to it. Even Sayid found a smile crossing his face.

"I know you, John," Jack said slowly, a small smile crossing his face. "If you wanted to, I'd never find it."

And that finally broke the tension. Everyone got up, and began to walk towards Locke, Walt leading the way. Even James Ford seemed to be willing to forgive, at least for the moment.

The next hour was spent in getting everybody caught up. There was a showing of collective pictures of children, and Locke seemed genuinely pleased to see that Sayid was happy at last. He also seemed glad to know that Kate and Jack had gotten married, and even the introductions to people he didn't know went over pretty well.

"I'm Juliet. I was really wasn't responsible, but I'd like to apologize for having all your friends tormented for three months," Juliet had said when she shook his hand.

Locke gave a small smile. "I suppose this is where I should apologize for blowing up your submarine."

"It worked out, but I'd like to hear it anyway."

"I am sorry. And it turns out we have something in common right away." Juliet raised an eyebrow. "We both know Ben Linus was a monster."

"No argument there." Juliet then gave a smaller and more sincere smile.

Even for those who didn't know Locke well, they could see the differences between the man before them and the one they had known. He seemed a lot more centered than he had been on the island, a lot more sure of himself in a way he never had.

James probably could've put into words better than anybody else. The John Locke he'd known on the island had always been scared, even when he wasn't. It was possible that he was still frightened, but what was coming off his radar was that he didn't seem to care about putting up a brave face any more. However, he was still having a lot of trouble forgiving the man he'd seen, and been holding back on being as friendly as the others.

Appropriately enough, it was Jack who brought the get-together back to the subject at hand. "Okay, John, we all have a lot of questions. So let's start with the most obvious one." He took a deep breath. "Why didn't you tell us why you knew the island was special?"

Locke considered this for a moment. "The simplest response is I didn't think anyone would believe me."

"I would've," Claire jumped in quickly. "I was pretty sure that the reason I was on that plane was because someone knew I was going to end up there."

Locke looked a little surprised. "How did that happen?"

Claire explained how she had gone for a psychic reading not long after she had gotten pregnant, how the psychic had been very clear that her child not be 'raised by another', and kept pestering her for months. How she had been about to give it up for adoption when the pen she was using to sign the documents went dry. And how she had seen the psychic and he had insisted she get on Oceanic 815.

The rest, except for Desmond and Penny, had heard this story before. Locke was clearly a little taken aback by it. "Did you tell anyone else when you were on the island?" he asked.

"Charlie," she said. "Right before Ethan took us both. After that…" She trailed off.

Locke thought for a moment. "Seems like more people were believers than I thought, "he said. "So I'll be candid. I really thought the island had chosen me, and that somehow the fact that I'd been healed was a sign."

This was the first time that Locke had sounded like himself. Hurley spoke up first. "Chosen for what?"

Locke didn't answer directly. Instead, he looked at Jack. "The day you went off the cliff. You remember the conversation we had?"

"Hard to forget it. You said I was chasing a white rabbit. I said it was impossible, and you said, 'Even if it isn't, let's say that it is.'"

"Have you told everybody what exactly you were chasing?" Locke asked. "And I'd actually like you to tell us. Remember, I never asked you what you actually saw."

Well, if Locke was going to share his secrets, it was only fair for Jack to do the same. He told them that he had seen his father, walking around the island, even though he'd died in Sydney, and Jack had seen him put in a coffin. That he had chased him to the caves, where he had found his father's coffin – empty. He'd smashed it to pieces, and then he had gone back to the beach, where he had made his famous speech.

Locke took this in, only slightly surprised by this. "It's very hard to find a starting point with what I found out about the island," he said slowly. "So I'll begin with something I only told one other person about. When the monster came at me when we –" he looked at Kate and Michael – 'were hunting boar, I did see something. It was a bright, white light. It seemed spiritual, holy. Something not to be feared. That's what I meant when I said I saw into the eye of the island, and what I saw was beautiful. And that is what I expected to see when you, me, Kate and Hugo were carrying the dynamite back from the Black Rock and it showed up again."

"Except that's not what we saw," Hurley told them.

"And that's not what I saw, either," Locke admitted. "That pillar of smoke rushed right up to me. Except before it got there, it paused, and there were a series of flashes, much like it was taking photos of me. Except they weren't pictures of me."

"What did you see?" Kate asked.

"My life, or at least all the horrible parts of it." Locke shook his head. "I'm guessing you know at least some of it from your research, but suffice to say it was like they were bringing up every painful memory. From getting shoved in a locker in high school, to being tricked out of a kidney by my father, to losing Helen the first time, to being turned away by that walkabout in Sydney. It was like the monster was judging me, and considered that I was no longer worthy. Then it grabbed me by the leg, and yanked me into the jungle." He looked at Jack. "I guess I never did get around to thanking you for saving my life."

Jack shook his head. "I guess I just figured we were even for you stopping me from falling to my death." He gave a small smile. "But we had other things to do that night. Hatches to blow open and discussion about science and fate."

"Did you really start believing I was a problem that night?" Locke asked, almost casually. "Or was it because of what happened to Boone."

There it was. The elephant in the room. Why had the two of them never really trusted each other? Jack had had a lot of time to think about it over the past month. "Well, the easy answer would be I thought you got Boone killed," he admitted. "But if I'm going to be honest with myself, I guess it was the way you challenged my way of thinking. I didn't exactly like it when anybody challenged my authority, which is _mildly _ironic, considering I never wanted the job in the first place."

"Did you blame me for talking you into it?" Locke asked.

"I didn't exactly ask anyone else to do it instead of me once I was in charge," Jack reminded him. "You had a crappy life, John, I'm not denying it, but you didn't have a monopoly when it came to having baggage."

"Um, Jack, I think that was true for just about all of us," Kate pointed out. "And to be fair, you didn't do a lot on the island to win friends and influence people, John."

"Well, I made an effort at first," Locke replied. "But after Boone got killed because of what I was doing, I pretty much gave up on trying to do anything as part of a group." He looked at them all. "And I'm willing to bet that's why none of you trusted me very much."

Jack looked at him, a little dumbfounded. "So all that talk about Boone being the sacrifice –"

"…'the island demanded.' Jack, I was trying to convince myself as much as you." Locke admitted. "I'll admit I was honest that I thought we were there for a reason. But I didn't have a clue what that reason was. I was hoping that it would be in the hatch." He looked at Desmond. "Kind of why I was so willing to believe in the button."

"If you'd been looking for logic, brutha, you'd' ve been better served by someone who was stir-crazy and out of his mind for the last six weeks," Desmond told him. "If I'd been a little more reasonable, I could've told you _exactly _what happened when you didn't push the button."

"Why didn't you?" Locke asked.

"Well, you didn't exactly listen when I did," Desmond gently reminded him.

"Fair point." Locke paused. "Look, I've been stalling for awhile, so I'll get to my original point. I was wrong about a lot on the island. Granted, I was right about some things too, but I was wrong about a lot."

There was a momentary silence. This time, Hurley chose to break it. "Actually, dude, you were right about more than you knew," he said.

"Which part, Hugo?" Locke asked.

There was a longer pause. "I don't know about the 'all roads leading here part'," Jack started, "but you were right in so far as that everybody who survived the crash was supposed to be on the plane."

Locke took this in. "You were pretty dismissive of it in the Swan," he finally said. "What made you all change your minds?"

"For starters, you weren't the first one to raise the question," Kate told him. "About a week after the crash, Sayid told me that he thought there had to be something behind the fact that we managed to survive, most of us with only minor injuries."

Locke was clearly taken by surprise by this. "You didn't exactly make this public knowledge," he said to Sayid.

"I was concentrating on getting the transceiver to work at the time," Sayid said. "Besides, Kate pretty much dismissed it as coincidence, and I let it go."

James stirred from the brown study he'd been in, and raised an eyebrow. "Looks like you and the Doc had more in common than I gave you credit for," he said with just a taste of the old Sawyer in the remark.

"So what makes you think differently now?" Locke asked.

"After we got rescued, we've had a lot of conversations," Kate told him. "And there was a lot of stuff in our background that we had common. Too much that we couldn't dismiss very easily."

"And since we're being honest," Jack told him. "It started to become clear even before we left the island that it was more than just a small world." He looked at James.

James took a deep breath. "When I was in Sydney, I was trying to work up the nerve to do something difficult. I ended up in a bar. And I met this man, who was going for a world record when it came to benders. I bought him a drink, and he told me his name was Christian." He looked at Jack. "He said he was proud of his son, that he was a better doctor than he was, that he was a better man than he was, and that all he wanted to do was pick up the phone and tell him that. I asked him why he couldn't, and he said: 'Because I am weak.'"

Locke took this in. "Your father."

"I didn't make the connection until the Doc mentioned something that his Dad said," James told him slowly. "Then about an hour before we launched the raft, I figured there was a damn good chance I was never gonna see him again. So I told him what I knew about his father, and that it was a small world. I didn't know how small."

"It turned out that I later found out why my father was in Sydney in the first place. " Jack took a deep breath. "He was there to see his daughter."

Locke was clearly surprised by that. "I'm guessing you didn't know."

"No. And I didn't know until months after we got back that his daughter was just a few seats away from me on the plane." He looked towards Claire.

Now Locke didn't even bother to hide his surprise. "Had you ever met Jack's father before that?"

Claire slowly unfolded much of the story about her father coming to see her after her mother's auto accident that had left her in a coma, and that she had been so appalled by his ideas that she hadn't even wanted to learn his name.

"Do you remember him from when he came there?"

Claire nodded. "It must have been a week before I got on the plane. He came hammering on our door at four in the morning. He was at least three sheets to the wind. My Aunt Lindsay never even let him in the house. And I still hadn't changed my mind about hating his guts." She seemed a little tearful now. "Maybe if I had…"

James surprisingly spoke up. "I remember seeing him. Guy was full-on Leaving Las Vegas." When it was clear that no one got that reference, he clarified it. "Your father wasn't planning on ever coming back to LA alive."

Jack and Claire both looked depressed, but neither was surprised. "That wasn't even the most surprising link," Jack said. "About a month after we got back to LA, I found out that my dad didn't fly to Sydney alone. He booked two seats. One of them was for a security guard at LAX named Ana Lucia Cortez."

Jack had only told his immediate family about this. The rest were clearly shocked. "Why the hell did he take her?" James demanded.

"I have no idea. And I have no clue why Ana Lucia would go with him," Jack admitted. "All I can say with certainty is that this happened about a month after she quit the force. Maybe she felt she had nothing in LA left for her. "

"She was already seriously broken long before that, " Sayid said, his eyes looking far away. "She told me she was shot six times when she was on the job. And I suspect she killed the man who shot her."

Hurley nodded. "Her mother thought the same thing when I talked to her," he admitted. "But she offered to help her. She was willing to risk her position to keep her daughter out of prison. Instead, she handed in her badge, and the last time they spoke was before she got on the plane back to LA. There was a three month gap in between."

Michael was quiet, and they all knew what he was thinking. On at least one occasion, he'd been more than willing to go to Teresa Cortez and face the consequences. The group had talked him out of it. Ana Lucia's mother believed her daughter had died on the island a hero. There was nothing to be gained by Michael confessing, especially because of Teresa's position in the LAPD. It had taken a huge amount of effort for the Oceanics to forgive Michael for what he'd done, and nearly as much work for his son to forgive him. Nothing could be gained by starting it all up again now.

Jack could see they were entering dark territory, and redirected the conversation. "If my father was the only connection between so many of us, we might be able to write it off as coincidence. Not easily, but still possible. But there were a lot more connections then just me to everybody else."

"Such as?"

Hurley actually looked a little uncomfortable at this. "Well, between me and you for one, dude," he said slowly. "You told us you worked at a box factory? Well, when I won the lottery, my financial adviser acquired it for me. And I put one of my… old bosses to work there."

Now Locke was clearly stunned. "Randy got his job there because of you?" he asked.

"Sorry, dude. I know the guy was a giant douche. I really didn't like him that much." Hurley was actually flushing a little.

"You were right about me knowing Desmond by the way," Jack interjected, trying to ease some of the pressure from Hurley. "I met him when he was training for his race around the world. But that's not the only connection he had to someone on the plane."

Desmond nodded. "About a week after ending up in LA, I ran across this woman in a café who was willing to buy me a cup of coffee. I had a conversation with her, and she mentioned that she had a boat that her husband gave her before she died. On something that seemed spur of the moment even for me, she gave it to me." He paused. "In case you forgot, the boat was called the Elizabeth."

Locke made the connection. "You knew Libby?"

"The irony is, I came back to the island just as you were having her funeral," Desmond shook her head. "I'm not sure what I would've said to her."

James then spoke up and told the story about the con he had pulled in Iowa about three years before he had ended up on the plane. When he said her name was Cassidy, Kate sat up straight.

"You're the one who conned her out of her life savings and knocked her up?" she said angrily.

"Makes you feel any better, when me and Juliet visited her about a year he ago, she was still holding a grudge," James actually seemed a bit ashamed. "She was the one who told be that the two of you had met. It was about a month after I finished my con."

Kate was clearly appalled by this fact.

"I have to ask, did you encourage her to turn him in?" Juliet asked.

Kate actually looked a little ashamed herself. "She'd helped me get to see my mother about six months after she turned me in" she said slowly. "I asked her if she was thinking about turning in the man who ruined her life. " She paused. "Seriously, Sawyer, I knew you were a bastard but still."

"Well, she did turn me in, and I did end up in prison. But you know how that story turned out."

"Turned out you could manage to find links to all of us who survived by at least one or two degrees of separation," Hurley said. "Except you know, for Jin or Sun, 'cause they never left South Korea on the plane. Or Sayid, because he didn't end up in America until we came back."

"That is not entirely true," Sayid said softly. He looked at Kate. "I didn't make the connection until your wedding, but I knew Sam for a while."

Kate took this in. "He did serve in Iraq during the first Gulf War," she said. "What exactly did he do?"

"My unit was captured by the Army. The man – Sam –asked me to do some translating with one of my commanding officers in order to locate a missing pilot. He actually treated me fairly decently for an occupying soldier. It was clear he knew how difficult it was for me to even try to interrogate one of my fellow soldiers. Unlike some of the others."

None of them spoke. They all knew how ashamed Sayid was off what he had done in the Republican Guard.

"When they were driving me back to Baghdad, he was looking at a picture. He asked me if I had any family, any children." Sayid looked at Kate, who had always been close to her. "Did he know about… who he was by then?" Kate nodded. "I never saw the photograph, but I know that look. There was no question of his love for you."

Kate wiped her eyes, and took his hand.

"There are just too many connections between us to dismiss," Jack replied. "It would take some work to dismiss just the ones that involve my father, but when you throw in so many of the others…"

"'Don't mistake coincidence for fate'" Locke said quietly.

Sayid stirred a little. "You said that once before, and the expression clearly meant something to you."

"Eko said it to me when we were in the hatch together one day," Locke genuinely seemed regretful. "I know that aside from Charlie and the other people in the tail section, I was the only one he was really close to when our groups merged. I really think he may have been even more tuned in to what the island was than even at me."

Hurley considered this. "Did he, like, have visions too?"

Locke nodded. "I don't know if he believed in what the island could do originally, but the only reason he knew the button was important was because he had a dream about it. When I was at my lowest point, he had become the island's disciple. If I'd had faith in _him, _even when I thought the Swan was a lie, I might not have endangered everybody."

"Maybe," Desmond said. "On the otha hand, if you _hadn't _lost faith, I wouldn't have been able to turn the failsafe key. There's a real chance we might still be there if I hadn't."

Locke considered this. "If you're expecting me to say 'Everything happens for a reason', I'm not sure I would in this case. A lot of bad stuff as a result of the hatch imploding. And Eko was dead a few days later."

"Did the monster really kill him?" Jack asked.

Locke nodded. "It threw him into the ground. I still don't know why. The island seemed to be keeping him alive. And his faith was real. I don't know what he saw those last few minutes, but something must've changed him."

"I think that may be one mystery we'll never get an answer to," Sayid said, still thinking.

Locke broke the silence. "I'm glad to know that you at least accept we were supposed to be on the plane. It's going to make telling this story easier to accept. Because I have to say, as mystifying and bizarre as things were in the three months you were on the island, things were even stranger for the year and a half I spent after you left."

Walt, who had been remarkably quiet through most of the conversation, spoke up for the first time. "Did you get the answers to the question we had?"

"I did get a lot of answers, Walt. But every question I had often just led to another question. And I have to be honest with you, I think even the people who were supposed to have all the answers were as clueless as we were about so much of what was going on." He looked at Juliet. "I'm willing to bet that you, at least, can sympathize with that."

Juliet didn't argue. "All of those files that Ben and Mikhail gathered on you, all they had was intelligence on what your lives were like before you came to the island. They never said whether or not you were even supposed to be there in the first place."

"I'm not entirely sure of that, either," Locke pointed out. "Did they ever tell you why they wanted everybody to be making those lists in the first place?"

"Ben always said that those lists were for Jacob," Juliet said sarcastically, "but given some of the things that I learned after we got back, I was never even sure that Jacob even existed."

"You were right to never trust Ben," Locke put forth, "He never knew nearly as much about the island as he let on. But in that case, he was telling the truth."

That got everybody's attention. There was a murmur of voices, until Jack, as had been the case so many times, got everyone's attention. "John, I think it's time you got around to telling us just what happened when we left."

"That is what I came here to do," Locke said slowly. He looked at Hurley. "Hugo, I assume you have someone who can prepare some food for us? Preferably cooked?"

"Sure thing, dude."

"Then I suggest you have them make up some dinner and brew a strong pot of coffee. " Locke said. "This is going to be a very long story."


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Locke began his discussion by turning to Juliet. "I realized you all hoped I would answer questions, and not ask them, but there are some things I have to know about the Others. And since we happen to have one here…"

"I'll do the best I can," Juliet told him. "Keep in mind; I was on the outside nearly as much as you were."

"Among the Others, did you have an understanding of a hierarchy?" Locke asked. "Was Ben always the leader?"

"As long as I was there, the basic understanding was that Benjamin Linus was in charge." Juliet said. "And there were always people who were trusted lieutenants. Tom, Ryan, and Richard, they were among the highest ranking."

"That's interesting, because from what I understand, Richard was the one who recruited Ben to the Others in the first place." Locke told them casually.

Juliet had not mentioned Richard Alpert much in her discussions of life as an Other, even though he and Ethan had been the ones who had recruited her. "It was clear that Richard had a special rank among them. No one would say so directly, certainly not to me, but it was understood that Richard had been connected to the island for a very long time." She looked at Locke. "Confirm or deny?"

Locke considered this. "When I decided to join with the Others," he said slowly. "Ben told me that I had a test to pass. That test," he took a deep breath, and than looked at James for the first time, "was to kill my father. Now I have no idea how they managed to get him from America to the island in the first place."

"How did they explain it?" Jack asked.

"Ben said there was 'a very special box' that no matter what you asked for, anything you want could come out of it." He knew what all of them were thinking. "I know. What I can say? I really thought that the island could do that back then. In retrospect, the most obvious explanation is that Ben read my file, knew who Cooper was, and brought him to the island so that he could use him to manipulate me." Locke paused again. "Hell, saying that out loud makes the whole 'magic box' thing seem reasonable."

"Not that unreasonable," Juliet said quietly. "Around the same time that we captured the four of you, Ben sent a bunch of Others on some kind of special mission to Florida. He didn't tell anybody what it was about of course, and by that time, I was too involved on what was happening on Hydra Island to really care."

"He was planning all that while he was trying to get the Doc to remove that tumor?" James asked. When Juliet nodded, he shook his head. "Bug-eyed bastard could really multi-task."

"He set me up to kill him, but I couldn't do it. The next day, Richard came to see me. He told me that I was very special, and that Ben had occupied 'us' for too long with issues like fertility, and that we had to get back to basics. Since the only way for that happen was for my father, and since I couldn't do it, someone else would have to." He looked at James directly. "He's the one who gave me the file on you. And he's the one who knew what Cooper had done."

James looked him for a very long time. "What the hell kind of files were they?" he finally asked.

"Cooper had an Interpol file. As to how, Richard managed to get his hands on it that was the first real hint I had that Richard knew more about the island than he was telling us." Locke paused. "And I am truly sorry that I made you kill him. I'm not sorry he's dead, but taking a life, especially like that, it's pretty inexcusable. I truly thought that it would be worth it, but that's no excuse."

James looked at Locke. "Not gonna lie to you, that messed me up for awhile," he said. "I don't know why I was so pissed, it was the realization of a thirty year quest, but I don't think my killing Cooper made me any happier than it would have if you'd done it."

"He just kept bringing misery upon people even with his death," Locke was now looking somewhere farther away than the island. "That was so like him." He gathered himself.

"Now I have to ask another question, Juliet," he said slowly. "What did he tell you about Jacob?"

"Jacob was God on the island, or at least as close as anyone would mention." Juliet told him. "Everyone revered him. They considered his word gospel, and that we were following him for a purpose. This was rather remarkable, considering nobody on the island except Ben had ever seen him or talked to him. Even when Ben said that Jacob would cure Rachel's cancer, I took it on faith, even though by then I didn't believe a word out of his mouth."

"And you had every reason not to," Locke said. "Ben, as was always the case with him, was lying. Jacob existed, but Ben Linus never even met him, much less spoke to him."

Again he had everyone's attention. "How'd you find this out?"

"After I brought Cooper's body to them – they'd left a trail I could follow – Ben took me into his tent, and told me that the man they all answered to was Jacob. And that I could see him if I was patient. When I asked if Richard could take me, he was genuinely offended by the idea. That alone should've told me something." Locke looked at them. "He said Jacob only spoke to him, and that no one else did. And right then, I had the exact attitude you did, Juliet, I thought that there was no such person at Jacob, that his people were idiots if they believed if he took orders from anyone, and that he was the Man behind the Curtain. And that he was a liar."

"How'd he take that?" Juliet said with a smile.

"He tried to turn the question back on me. I just told him that if he wasn't lying, his hand wouldn't be shaking."

Sayid actually smiled, albeit somewhat unpleasantly. "That's more than I was ever to get from him."

"A little after that, our old friend Mikhail showed up. This seemed to shock Ben as much as it did me."

"Our group ran into him a couple of days before," Hurley mentioned. "Kate had told us what you did, so we were a little shocked ourselves."

"He mentioned to that to Ben," Locke told them. "Something about the pylons not being set to a lethal level, and then he told me about your boat, and that they had to stop them. Ben mentioned the raid his group was going to make, and I saw an opportunity. I told them that first Ben had promised to see Jacob."

"How'd he handle it?"

"Mikhail was angry. Said I was an outsider. I was still a little pissed at him for putting a gun to my head just a week ago, so I started to beat him up. Ben gave an order to Tom to pull me off. Tom did nothing. He asked Richard, and for the first time since I met him, he sounded a little desperate. Ben's position within the Others was teetering, and all I needed to do was give a little push."

"I would've paid money to see that," Juliet had a similar unpleasant smile on her face.

"Ben tried to put up a brave face, saying that you didn't go to see Jacob, he summoned you. And he wasn't going to be happy. By this point, I didn't think there was a Jacob. So I just told him that 'I guess he won't be happy."

"It was near dusk when we started walking, and we must have walked for hours. The only time we talked was when I asked him why he was pretending to be Alex's father, and why he said her mother was dead."

"What was his explanation for that?" Sayid was curious now.

"He told me that Alex's mother was crazy, and there was no point in ruining her life by telling her that. When I argued that it should be her decision, he argued that wouldn't I have been better off if I have never known who my parents were? I didn't feel like arguing.

"Finally, it must have close to midnight; we reached this long row of ash. He stepped over it, and after about a few hundred more feet, we came across this cabin. Ben turned off his flashlight, and he told me to turn off mine. He lit at a lantern, and he said, "Once you go inside, there's no turning back.' I just looked him, and he opened the door.'

"What was there?"

"There was a window with a row of glass jars in it. The jars had some kind of fluid in them, I never figured out what. There was this portrait of a dog. And an empty rocking chair." Locke paused. "Ben said that Jacob was in that chair. I blinked a couple of times, and then he started having a conversation with the chair."

"For how long?" Hurley asked.

"It went on for like a minute." Locke looked at Hurley. "I know you're sensitive about the subject, but I'm pretty sure we'd have all agreed my thinking he was crazy."

"He was acting as if the chair was talking back to him?" Hurley asked.

"He said I wasn't enlightened enough to see him. Honestly, Hugo, I'm not sure what made me the most upset. That there was no Jacob or that the man I thought had the answers to everything was as crazy as a loon. I said Ben was pathetic, and that I was going to tell his people everything. I turned to leave." He paused. "That's when I heard it."

"What?"

'Help me'. It was almost a hoarse cry. But I thought Ben was playing tricks on me. I asked him what he said, and he denied saying anything. I turned around with my flashlight on." He paused. "And the room exploded. The jars in the room shattered, it felt like there was some kind of wind blowing. The chair started rocking. And for the briefest of moments, I thought I saw something in that chair. Ben leapt at it, and yelled: 'That's enough! You've had your fun!' and then he got flung across the room and the lantern shattered. That was enough for me. I ran out of there as fast I could. When I got to the other side, I asked Ben what that was. All he said was 'That's Jacob.'

"Now I'd seen some fantastic things on the island. But this I just thought was some kind of trickery on Ben's part, something he'd arranged just for his acolytes to see. Still, a small part of me couldn't help but think how surprised he seemed when the furniture started flying across the room. But I had no intention of telling Ben that. We didn't say anything for most of the trip back, and then he asked me what I thought. I told him that he put on a hell of a show, but I wasn't going to be fooled by any of his parlor tricks anymore. I was going to tell his people that he was a liar and that there was no Jacob. Then I mentioned something else I'd noticed, that this wasn't the way we came. I probably should've known he was planning something right then, but I was still mulling over what I seen."

"What did he tell you?" Sayid asked.

Locke looked at Jack. "Did he ever say to you that he'd lived on the island his entire life?" Jack nodded. "He told me the same thing twice. Then he mentioned he had lied about something. That he hadn't been born on the island. And that he was taking me to where he had actually been born." Locke shook his head. "I should've known that he had another trick up his sleeve, but I was curious to see what he had to say. So I kept following him. And he took me to them."

"To what?" Jack asked.

"The Dharma Initiative," Locke said slowly. "What was left of them, anyway. Mikhail was telling the truth that there had been a purge. He just lied about being a part of it. There was this huge pit. And in it were bodies. Dozens of them. And they'd been there for awhile. He told me that's where he was born. That this was what was left of them. That they couldn't get along with the original inhabitants of the island. That they had to be purged. He said that he had made the decision to leave them, which meant he was smarter than everyone in that pit. Which made him considerably smarter than me."

"I was quick, but he was quicker. He shot me, and I fell into the pit. I didn't know where I'd been hit, but I knew it was bad. And then, standing over me, he demanded: 'What did he say?'

"Even with my life flashing before my eyes again, I knew what he meant: I told him that Jacob said:' 'Help me'. And even with my vision growing dark, he looked genuinely surprised. Then Ben put on that mask he used, and said: 'Well, I certainly hope he helps you.' And I'm not going to lie to you. I thought that was going to be the last thing I ever heard.'"

This last bit genuinely stunned everybody. None of them may have liked John Locke much at the time, and some of them might still have been harboring doubts about him, but he was still one of them. Sayid spoke up first. "What happened next?"

"I don't know how long I was out. At least a day, maybe longer. When I came to in that pit, I still thought it was near the end. I did what I always did when I fell down. I tried to see if my legs were still working. They weren't this time. "He took a deep breath. "I made a decision that I was going to die on my own terms. One of the bodies in the pit had a sidearm. I mustered all my strength, and managed to roll myself far enough to reach. I saw there was still a bullet in the chamber, and I gave one last prayer, that all the years of lying in that pit hadn't rusted away to nothing."

"What stopped you, Mr. Locke?" Walt asked.

Locke looked at his young friend. "You did. I heard someone say John. I looked up, and you were standing there. "He held up a hand. "I knew perfectly well that you were off the island, and I had no idea about what you could do. But I knew you were my friend, and I thought that somehow, the island had allowed you to come here to help me."

"I said I couldn't move. And you said: Yes, I could. Now get up John." When I asked why: 'Because you have work to do.'

"And then, I could feel my legs again.'

There was clear murmuring about this – everyone, to a degree, knew what was coming – but Walt was the one who spoke up. "When was this exactly?" he asked Hurley.

Hurley was confused for a moment, and then made a guess. "Um, about three days before we left the island, maybe. December 20th maybe."

Walt looked at Locke. "I had dreams about you when we were back in New York," he said slowly, "but I never had any visions like the ones you're talking about. And I certainly didn't have the ability to do that when I was off the island."

Locke nodded. "I'd had visions of the rest of you," he told them. "I'd even seen an apparition of Boone a couple of times, after he died. So I figured even if it wasn't you, the island was taking the form of a friend to help me find the strength to do what I needed to do. What I needed to do right then was to get out of the pit of dead bodies."

"Wait a minute. I'm still not following." Hurley said slowly. "I know that the island had remarkable abilities, that it could like, heal the sick, and all that. But are you saying the island actually was able to heal you from getting shot in the gut that fast?"

"It might not have been able to, if Ben had had better aim." Locke got to his feet, and indicated the left side of his body. "He shot me right there. If I still had my kidney, I would've died right there."

Jack took this all in the fastest – he was, after all, the surgeon of the group. "That's where he shot you?"

Locke gave a small smile. "If I hadn't been convinced that all roads led me here before, I would've been sold on the concept right then. It was a perfect through and through. And it kept me convinced that I was doing the right thing."

"How long did that last?" Sayid asked.

"Until I got my next set of marching orders."

Locke didn't know how long it had taken him to climb out of the pit – its one thing to rediscover your faith in the island, but that didn't change the fact he'd been shot in the gut yesterday. Moving was not a picnic.

"John." Walt was standing next to him.

Locke had been following the island, even though he didn't understand what was going on most of the time. He was convinced that the island would put him where he needed to be. So the fact that he was standing face to face with a boy who had left the island a month ago didn't necessarily shock him. What did put him a little off was the fact that his friend had been ten years old when Oceanic crashed. This child was clearly Walt, but he was also at least three inches taller than the last time he'd seen him. And his voice sounded a little deeper.

"How are you here?" Locke asked. "Kate said Michael took you off the island."

"He did. That doesn't mean I can't still be here." Walt paused. "I missed you, John."

Locke found his eyes were going moist. "I missed you too, Walt. But why…"

"John, I know that you have questions, but I can't answer them now," Walt said calmly. "Because if you don't listen and do what needs to be done, we will all be in danger."

Locke listened. "What do I have to do?"

"Someone is coming to the island. And if they get here, everything that is important will be in danger. Your friends are walking to the radio tower. They're going to try and communicate with the boat."

"Mikhail mentioned that. Who's on it?"

"People tied to someone very powerful, who wants to control this island. That can't happen, John. You have to stop them. "

"Ben said he was going to stop them."

"And since when has listening to him ever done you any good?"

That last remark was so cynical, that for the first time since this conversation had started, John didn't think he was talking to Walt.

"The tower is roughly six miles due east of here, John. You have to get there before they can communicate with the boat."

"And what if they do?" Locke demanded.

"Then you have to do whatever it takes to stop her." Walt looked at him. "I have faith in you, John. I know you can do it."

There were so many more questions he wanted to ask, but before he could get any of them out, the whispers – the ones that Kate and Sayid had talked about but that John until now had never heard - started. Despite himself, Locke found himself looking all around, trying to find their source or understand anything they said.

And then he did. And it made no sense.

He turned around, and Walt was gone. Somehow, that didn't surprise him.

He knew what he had to do, and while he was on his way to the radio tower, he would ponder the meaning of the word.

_Loophole._

Even given all of the strange things that had happened on the island, the last lines had given them a lot to unpack. Perhaps fittingly enough, Hurley came up with the appropriate question.

"What exactly did that mean – 'loophole?'

"That's probably the most sensible question to ask, and believe me I didn't get anything approaching an answer for a very, very long time." Locke told them.

"Who did you think was telling you this?" Sun, who had been relatively quiet up to this point, asked.

"Honestly, I wasn't sure. But there were so many times on the island that I didn't understand what was happening, and yet I just decided to let 'destiny' take over." Locke looked at them. "I know that most of you would've thought it was foolish –"

"I wouldn't have," Desmond told him. "But I might've asked more questions first."

"I'd been trying that for weeks, and I wasn't getting anywhere," Locke reminded them. "But I decided to just take what the island said on faith. There was a threat to the island, and they needed me to stop it." He looked around. "And before I go any further, I think you'd better fill in the blanks as to what exactly was going on in the last week."

That they were willing to do. Penny explained about the tracking station that she'd had in the Arctic, looking for electromagnetic disturbances. On November 28th 2004, her men had reported they'd found one, and had gotten a lock on the coordinates.

What she hadn't known was that her father had been looking for the exact same disturbances, and had sent his own freighter with his own crew that didn't intend to do anybody on the island good. Naomi Dorrit had been sent to lead the exploratory team, and her cover story was to be that she was looking for Desmond, on behalf of Penny.

That boat had reached the island first, and so had Naomi, albeit with her crashing on the island. Desmond had gotten another of his flashes, and that had led to the hike through the island.

Sayid took them through the rest of the story – how they had planned to stop Ben's raid for the women in the camp, how they had gone to the Looking Glass to stop Ben's jamming of the transmission, how the rest of the party had gone to the radio tower to transmit, how Ben and Alex had intercepted them, and everything that had followed.

"Then just as Naomi was about to send her transmission, you came out of the jungle, and…" Jack trailed off. "I'm willing to grant you a lot more latitude now than I was then, but that still barely justified what you did. And it certainly doesn't change the fact that you shot at me."

"I had no intention of shooting you Jack," Locke told him. "In case you forgot, I shot way wide of you. And I only had one round in the chamber. I didn't have an alternative in case you still decided to say no."

"John, after all the shit we went through those three months we were on the island, after what I had seen you do just a week earlier, how could you honestly think I would listen to you?"

"I didn't blow up the sub," Locke said quietly.

There was a momentary pause, and everybody started talking at once, Sayid and Jack the loudest.

"I saw it blow up!" For a moment, Jack sounded like the old self-righteous Dr. Shephard.

"And what exactly does an exploding submarine look like?" Locke pointed out.

Juliet was very quiet. "What did you do, John?"

"I had every intention of blowing the sub the minute I heard Mikhail mention it. That is why I took the C4 Sayid. And I was absolutely going to do it even after Ben spent the better part of an hour trying to talk me out of it." Locke paused. "Then while I was going to the sub, Alex told me that was how he operated. That he makes you think that it's your idea. Then I realized if the girl who had spent her entire life believing she was Ben Linus' daughter was telling me not to trust him that maybe the worst way I could hurt him was to _not_ do what he wanted."

Jack was still confused. "But you were walking away from the dock…"

"I was also soaking wet, Jack. Why would I have done that if I just planted C4 _inside _the sub?" Locke paused. "I piloted the submarine about a mile away. I found this old boat that they must have kept to travel around the island. I took some of the junk that was in the sub, put in inside, paddled it about where I'd left, and then placed under the boat. That's what blew up." He looked directly at Juliet. "But that's not a complete surprise. Is it?"

For the first time, everyone's attention had left John and was focused on Juliet. Especially Jack. "I saw the look in your eyes, Juliet. I defended you when they left you behind."

"And I told you the truth, Jack," Juliet said quietly. "I was working as a mole for Ben. I just left out when I started working for him again."

Sayid was surprisingly calm, considering he'd wanted to torture Juliet for just this same reason on the island. "He never had any intention of letting Jack get on the sub, did he?"

Juliet looked at Locke. "Your second mission to the Pearl Station? The one where you first saw Mikhail?" Locke nodded. "Mikhail reported to Ben the day after Colleen's funeral. The next few days he started planning something. I wasn't privy to all the details – I had just been marked after all – but once we were back in the Barracks, he started having meetings with Tom and Ryan. The morning before Kate, Sayid and you arrived, Ben called me in for a meeting."

"This is a little early to say goodbye, Ben," Juliet told him.

Ben stared out the window. "Shephard's put me in an untenable position," he said quietly. "If I let him leave, I'll be done as leader. But I can't go back on my word, either."

Juliet knew how mercurial Ben was. But she was also tired of dealing with him. "How is this my problem anymore?"

"He's put me in a nice little box." Ben still hadn't directly looked at her. "And fortunately, someone's coming who knows all about boxes."

Juliet may not have been an insider anymore, but she'd read the same files that everyone else had. "Locke's on his way here?"

"Mikhail saw him in the Pearl Station a week ago. If Shephard means as much to Austen as she obviously does to him, she'll have turned around and be leading a party back here as we speak."

"How does that affect us?"

"Clearly, they've come to rescue their fearless leader. And I think it would be in everyone's interest if we just let that happen."

Juliet knew Ben's moods well enough to know that he had some kind of dark plan in mind. "You promised that you'd let us go on the sub tomorrow!"

"'Us'. What an interesting word. You've known Shephard barely two weeks, and already you're considering the two of you 'us'. Do you think he feels the same way towards you, Juliet?"

"I'm tired of this, Ben. I've done everything you've asked of me, and far more. Now for once in your life, will you stop bullshitting me?!"

Ben finally turned his wheelchair around, and looked at her directly. "Shephard demanded I take him off the island. And you can see that I did. I made a different promise to you Juliet. I said I'd let you go home. And in that case, I'm willing to keep my word." He wheeled over to her. "The difference is, you have to remember who you are. Do you understand?"

Juliet had never been 'one of them'. This island had been a prison for her, and she's already served out three times longer than her sentence should've been. She didn't want anything to with Ben or any of them anymore. All she wanted was to go home. 'What do you want me to do?" she said, already sounding defeated.

Ben gave the smallest of smiles. "Ryan reported an explosion at the Flame late last night,' he said calmly. "That means one of them has the C4. If they follow the bread crumbs that were there, they'll probably be here by nightfall. All that I'm asking is that you let events play out. When they do, I'll have one last task for you. And when I do, you can leave the island for good."

"And everything played out pretty much as he said it would," Juliet said, softly but still looking right at everybody. "The next day, he gave me my marching orders, starting with being handcuffed to Kate."

Considering that all of this had happened years ago, it was amazing how fresh this betrayal now seemed.

James reached out and took her hand. "I told you that you shoulda told them that before," he said gently.

"You knew about this?" The moment after Jack said this, he shook his head. "Of course she told you. You two pretty much share everything now."

"I'm just a little shocked that you were willing to be the bigger man," Kate said slowly.

"I could make all kind of gross remarks here, but I'll stick to the subject," James replied, wagging his eyebrows a little. "She told me about a month after we got together. I couldn't exactly blame her – we all know what a huge monster the Prince of Darkness was. And considering I was Mr. 'Every Man for Himself', I couldn't exactly take the high road." He looked at Jack. "Considering that you never quite got around to telling us how you spent your vacation in New Otherton neither could you."

Jack shook his head again. "Does seem a little pointless bringing all that crap up again, considering we're all here now," he finally said. "Well, a lot of the things he said to me those couple of days really make a lot more sense now."

"That means you're finally going to share with us what happened in that nice little town?" Hurley asked.

"I will, but we're still on John's story." He turned back to Locke. "So let's get back to it? If you weren't going to stop us from leaving the island, why did you make all that effort to get there?"

"The island had told me to, and I was obeying its order. And I might have gone further." Locke paused. "Then Ben opened his mouth."

Sun, Claire and Kate all knew what had come next. Ben had shouted out: "Stop him, John!" trying to get as much power as he could even though he was beaten and tied down. Locke had said "Don't do this," and Jack had basically told him to go to hell.

"At that point, I trusted the island, but I didn't believe Ben anymore than you did. And considering everything that had happened in the last day, I knew he was a liar. So I did the only thing that made sense to me."

John walked over to where Rousseau, Alex and a young boy he didn't recognize were standing guard over Ben Linus.

Locke looked right at Ben, who still looked genuinely gob smacked that the man he'd left for dead was standing right before him. "You're a terrible shot," he said slowly.

"You have to believe me, John. The island wanted –"

Locke looked at Rousseau. "Gag him," he said icily.

Alex acted before her mother could. John could see the hurt in his eyes.

"I'm sorry I didn't trust you about needing that gun," he told her.

"No one questioned his authority," Alex said simply.

"And I'm sorry I didn't believe you when you said he was one of them," Locke told Danielle.

Rousseau nodded. "So much time, so much noise. I had forgotten." She paused, and turned to her daughter. "He was the one who took you from me."

Locke didn't think Ben could get any more appalling. "I have two requests," he said simply. "The first is a simple one. I need you watch my friends, and make sure they stay safe."

All three of them looked puzzled. "Our people already tried to attack yours," the boy said for the first time. "Now that they've failed, I seriously doubt we could mount another attack that soon." Then after a pause: "I'm Karl, by the way."

Locke raised his eyebrow, but didn't say anything. "These people may not be who they say they are," he said quietly. "In case Jack is wrong, I need them to be prepared. They won't listen to me, so just be ready."

Danielle nodded. "And your other request?"

"I need you to give him to me." He indicated Ben.

He expected some kind of protest, and he did get one, but not the one he was expecting. "He won't tell you what you want to know," Alex said. "He'll lie and manipulate you as long as he can."

"I'm aware of that, Alex," Locke said calmly. "And I have no intention of listening to a word he says. But I understand there's some kind of process when one of your people causes the death of another, and he's just been responsible for a lot of them. He needs to be judged, and since I'm clearly not impartial, his people need to do it."

Danielle listened. "Give me your knife," she said calmly. John handed her one without a second thought. She held it in her hands long enough that for a long moment, he thought there was a possibility she would plunge into his chest. In the end, she finished cutting him loose, though she kept his hands bound.

"One last question," he said to Alex. "Where's the Temple?"


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Once again, everybody seemed puzzled. James looked at Juliet. "Was there a temple on the island?" he asked.

Juliet frowned. "The last time I spoke to Ben, which was just before they abandoned the Barracks, he said that the rest of them were going to an old place on the island. I was so focused on just getting my mission completed and getting the hell out of there that I didn't care what he was talking about." She looked at Locke. "How did you know about it?"

"Before Ben and I left to see Jacob, I overheard Tom talking with Richard about whether we were supposed to go on to the Temple as planned. Richard said something about having to wait until they returned."

"So we talking like, a Jewish kind of temple, or Indiana Jones type?" Hurley asked.

"Actually, based on what I saw of it, I'd say it was closer to something out of Ancient Egypt." Locke said. "Of course, I didn't know that at the time."

**December 21****st**** 2004**

Alex looked at Locke. "Until Ben mentioned it last night, I'd never heard of it," she told him.

Rousseau, however, looked thoughtful. "About three miles down from the beach where you have your camp," she said slowly. "There's a large wall marked with ancient designs. It looked more like a ziggurat, but I believe the Temple might be there."

Locke was a little puzzled at how Danielle might know this, but he also knew he didn't have much time before the rest of them recovered from their ecstasies over imminent rescue before they started looking for him. Still, he nodded, and grabbed Ben.

"Be careful, John." Danielle said. "That's where it took Nadine."

Locke didn't have to ask what 'it' was.

For the first mile, Ben put up a hell of a struggle, clearly trying to talk through his gag. Then John, who had been hauling him by the wrist, grabbed him and got in his face.

"There are two ways this can go, Benjamin," he said calmly. "I can take the gag out of your mouth, I'll loosen the reins a little, and you can have the illusion of freedom. Or I can knock you unconscious, and I can carry you on my back just like I did with my father. Now personally I'm fine, either way, but as someone who spent way too much time in a wheelchair until recently, you might want to be able to walk like a man for your last few hours of freedom. " He paused. "Nod if you accept my terms."

Ben seemed to hesitate for a long moment before he finally did.

Reluctantly, John removed the gag from his mouth. "Don't try anything funny."

"My sense of humor was never one of my strongest attributes, John," Ben said calmly.

Locke pulled him along slowly, wondering how long it would be before Ben tried to use his powers of persuasion.

He tried about fifteen minutes later. "You seem very confident that my people will just listen to you over me."

"Well, let's see. You've been jamming any attempts your people might have to reach the outside world. Your mission to take the women at the camp has ended in disaster. And you shot me and left me for dead in a ditch before I could tell everybody that your entire leadership was based on an empty chair. I think you've burned just about every bridge you have in the last two days." Locke kept walking. "Assuming, of course, you had any goodwill left to begin with."

As had always been the case with Ben, he managed to keep a perfect poker face. "And you think the island will let you take over?"

"Well, considering that I heard Jacob and you didn't, I'm guessing I'll have more favor with Richard then you will."

That clearly cut Ben. "I know that right now, you may think that you're riding high, that you're the Chosen One. But you're going to find out very soon that there are consequences to being chosen. Because destiny, John, is a fickle bitch."

The last statement was clearly very bitter. Under other circumstances, John might have almost felt sympathy for him.

"And what makes you think you heard Jacob anyway?"

That almost stopped him in his tracks. "You mean to say that there's some other spiritual leader of the island that happens to live in a cabin no one else has been to that has the power to move objects with his mind? I'm guessing that was him."

"You didn't know Jacob existed until a few days ago." Ben was using all his guile again.

"That's your play now, Ben?" Locke said dismissively. "Mikhail was very detailed on the way to the barracks. All that talk about the 'magnificent man who brought him to the island.' Everyone there was really pissed when I told them you were taking me to see Jacob. As I recall, your own daughter gave me a gun in preparation. Don't show me the man behind the curtain and then tell me that he isn't there."

"I didn't say that Jacob never existed, John. I know he does." Ben paused. "But I've never seen him before."

Locke stopped, then put his left leg in front of Ben. "I know they've only started working fairly recently, but you might want to try the other one. "

"Nine years ago, I had a dream," Ben said slowly. "In it an old friend of mine said he was building a cabin in the woods for a getaway. By then, I was used to the island sending me messages, so when I woke up, I walked away from my people, and headed into the woods. That night, I found exactly what I showed you. The line of ash. The cabin. The lantern outside it. I went inside, and saw exactly what you did. Right down to the empty chair. I didn't understand what it meant, but I knew it was important." He looked at John. "You must have felt like that before, John."

There was earnestness in Ben's voice that was almost believable. But he'd heard it before when he was professing to be Henry Gale from Minnesota. Locke ignored it, and continued hauling him.

"There was a gap in the leadership of the island back then. So when people asked me where I'd been, I just mentioned a name that I'd heard some of them mention before. I told them that I'd gone to see Jacob. I can't tell you what the looks on their faces were like. It must've been like Moses seeing the burning bush. So I kept going. And I did what I thought was best for me."

"I want to be sure I'm hearing this right, Ben," Locke said slowly, not even turning around. "You're a liar and a false prophet, and to try and prove me wrong, you're saying that you're an even bigger liar and not even a real prophet. I'm sorry, I can't believe I ever doubted you."

"I don't expect you to believe me, John."

"Yes, you do Ben. It's what you've been counting on since we met." Locke told him with a level of sarcasm that even Sawyer would've been surprised by. "Honestly, I'm not sure why I even bothered to take the gag out of your mouth. It's not like you're capable of saying anything more than a steady stream of lies."

"So you think I'm lying to you now?"

"Don't get me wrong. I don't think you ever saw Jacob in your life." Locke told him. "But I think you've been here long enough to backstop everything you've said so your lies sound believable. So here's what going to happen. Once we get to the Temple, I'm going to have a long and productive conversation with Richard. Because _he _hasn't lied to me yet, and I think he's even more tired of your leadership than I am. And then, I'm going to ask _him _take me to see Jacob."

Now Ben was the one who stopped suddenly. "How did you know?"

"That I could trust Richard? Well, for one thing, he told me that I'm special, and that you've been keeping them busy with irrelevancies…"

"No," Ben told him, and the worry in his voice sounded genuine. "That he's the one who talks to Jacob."

That was the one thing that Locke hadn't known. "What are you talking about?"

And then, almost as if it had been designed that way, they both heard the sound that had struck terror into the hearts of every Oceanic survivor for the past 90 days.

Locke risked a look at Ben, more out of curiosity than anything else. He saw a strange mixture on his face. If Jack, Kate, James or Hurley had been there, they would've recognized it in an instant. It was the same look that had been on his face when the sky had turned purple and that strange buzz had filled the air. A look of terror, recognition and resignation.

"I'm assuming you know what that is, or at least what it does," Locke said slowly. "I'm not afraid of what's coming. Are you?"

**wooosh**

At this point Jin, who'd mostly been quiet himself, spoke up. "I don't remember hearing that thing any point before we left the island."

Kate, surprisingly, interjected. "Did any of you remember hearing it the night we went to the Black Rock?" She was looking at Sun and Claire, in particular.

"I'll admit to being a little distracted, but no," Sun said finally.

"I think – the monster – could be very cagey when it wanted to be," Kate said slowly. "By everybody's account, it attacked somebody at least four or five other times, and aside from the first night, I don't think anybody else heard it that it wasn't around."

Jack nodded. "When I was talking with Ana Lucia, I asked her what she thought that thing was. When I told her what had happened the first night, she told me no one in her group heard anything like our group did, and whatever it was never bothered them. Considering what they were going through, I have no idea why. They sure as hell would've been easier prey."

Kate looked at Juliet. "And now would be a good time for you to come clean about what you knew about it, " she said. "Because you didn't exactly try hard when we were near the fence."

Juliet looked at them. "My second month on the island I was walking to the perimeter of the barracks with Ethan. Even by this stage, I'd was starting to give up on Ben telling me anything about this mysterious island, and I figured some of the older ones would be more revealing. I knew the sonic fence was a leftover from the 'previous inhabitants', as Ben was so euphemistically putting it, but no one would tell me why it was there. Ethan had recruited me, and he said he'd been on the island awhile, so I asked him what the fence was for."

'I only saw it once when I was twelve,' he said. 'We were camped out about three miles from the Mesa. We were playing catch, and suddenly we heard this weird howl, and this sound like chains rattling. None of us knew what it was. Then suddenly, the trees started shaking, and there was this explosion. I'd heard a lot of strange things on the island, but nothing like this.'"

'Then we saw this pillar of smoke. The top of it split into three, like some kind of mythological monster, and it started coming toward us. I started running. Andrew was just behind me, and then he wasn't. I didn't even hear him make a sound, I just kept moving until I was behind the bamboo. Then I heard this crash. I looked up, and Andrew's body was in the highest branch, practically broken in half.'

'I ran as fast as I could back to camp, right into Richard. I was a babbling, incoherent mess when I got to him – I'm still not sure what I managed to say. But he must've gotten the message, because he looked at me as if I was an adult.'

"'Listen to me, Ethan. What went after Andrew, that thing, was evil incarnate. It wants to destroy everything that it doesn't consider worthy of this place. The fact that you managed to get away, is only because it wanted you to get away. If it ever sees you again, it won't the make the same mistake twice.'

'I didn't understand how something like this could exist, or why it would decide that a twelve-year old boy needed to be killed. But Richard had been there longer than me, and knew far more. I took him seriously.'

'There's one more thing you should know', Richard said. 'Someday, when you least expect it, you may hear something that sounds like him or looks like him. That's not your friend. It's that thing.'

"I never understood why he told me that, or why we never even had a funeral for Andrew, but I've seen some strange things on this island, and I'm still waiting to hear his voice.'

'Somehow the Dharma folk must've known about it,' Ethan then told me. "That must be what the fence was built for. As far as we know, it being turned on is the only sure way to keep it out.'"

"Now, there are two things you have to know. One, Ethan had been a member of the Others longer than just about anyone else other than Ben or Richard. He wouldn't talk about it, but I'm pretty sure he was a child back when the Dharma Initiative was the island. How exactly he came to defect from them over to the Others, is a story that I never got out of him in the three years I knew him."

"And two, back then, I still wasn't inclined to believe that the Island was some kind of mystical place. If anything, considering there were no phones or way of reaching civilization, I was still inclined to think of it as some kind of backwards hole in the Pacific."

"But considering that Ethan was willing to delve that much into his past to warn me about what he thought was there, made me incline to listen. Back then, Ethan was my right hand man when it came to the fertility problem. I trusted him more than just about anyone else on the island. So, as supernatural as it seemed, I was willing to take it seriously."

"All of this," Juliet said, turning back to Kate, "is a roundabout way of telling you that even though I had never seen the monster in my entire three years on the island, I still knew the only way to keep us safe from it."

Kate considered this for a moment. "I guess I never did get around to thanking you for saving our lives that day," she said slowly.

Juliet gave a soft smile. "I think it's pretty clear that I wasn't exactly worthy of your trust, much less your thanks. You did still dislocate my shoulder, though."

Kate smiled back. "One of these you've got to tell us about the other three times it happened to you."

"Not that I'm not grateful to hear this part, but I'd actually like to know what you did with Benny Badman after you knew Smokezilla was on its way," James actually sounded relaxed for the first time all day. "If it were me, I'd have tied the bastard to a tree and left him there."

"I'm not going to lie to you, James, the thought did cross my mind," Locke admitted. "But considering my past experiences, I knew I had at most a minute to react. And while I'm good with knots, I wasn't that fast."

**wooosh**

There was a pause after the last woosh. Locke spoke fast. "You said something once about a test," he said. "I passed mine. Now it's your turn."

Two things happened simultaneously. There was an explosion in the forest not fifty feet away. And Locke ducked into the bushes. He was still wary from what had happened the last time he had encountered, and he knew what it had done to Eko, a man who had believed in the island. And a very small part of him was thinking that if the monster ended up killing Ben right here and now, it was just what he deserved.

Seconds later, the explosions stopped. The last one had sounded like it was at most five feet away. Ben hadn't uttered a sound.

Then suddenly, there was no light. Locke dared look up just the slightest bit, and what he saw stunned him. The smoke seemed to fill the entire sky. It was bigger than he ever thought possible. And he didn't see Ben anywhere. He heard noises that sounded almost like that of a camera taking pictures. It seemed to last forever, but it couldn't have been more than ten or fifteen seconds.

Then John could see the sky again. Ben was still standing there, looking genuine stunned for the first time since he had met him.

Then someone came out of the woods. A balding man who looked to be fifty going on eighty. He seemed to have a slight nosebleed. And he was wearing a Dharma jumpsuit which looked crisp and new. Locke could even make out the name under the pocket. 'Roger.'

"John," Ben sounded genuinely unnerved for the first time since they had met. "You might want to leave now."

The man stood at least ten feet away from him. "Hello, son."

A horrible realization came to John. Ben had confirmed, more or less, that he had participated in the Purge. Had he actually been willing to orchestrate his own father's death? Even considering that he had, not a week earlier, done the same thing, this seemed like a level of bloodthirstiness that he genuinely had not thought Ben would be capable of.

Locke suddenly realized that this creature _was _Ben's test. And whatever came next, he didn't think he had any right to bear witness. He backed away.

"Looks like I forgot your birthday again," Roger Linus was saying to his son. "You'd think considering what happened last time I forgot, I'd be more aware."

There was a long silence.

"What's the matter? Fifteen years, and you still have nothing to say to me?" There was something about this voice that reminded Locke of Anthony Cooper.

"You're not him." There was something pathetically weak, almost childish about Ben's voice.

"You still aren't taking responsibility for what you did." Roger said quietly. "Even now that it's all in ruins, you still can't say you're sorry."

"Everything I did…"

"Don't," Roger's voice was harder now. "Don't say you did it for the island. You didn't even know what it was when you did it. This is your last chance, Ben. Admit the truth."

"All right, fine!" Ben shouted. "You made my life hell since the day I was born! You brought me here without even asking me, and all you did was get drunk and beat me up! We were all each other had, and you treated me like I was garbage! I betrayed everybody, I lied to everybody, and I wouldn't have done it, if you would've just told me once, you loved me!"

There was a long pause. "I did love you, son." Roger said softly. "I just missed your mom so much."

There was a much longer pause. Locke dared venture a glance.

Ben was still standing. But there was something different.

It looked like he'd been crying.

"So what are you saying?" Hurley asked. "That somehow Ben's father was the monster?"

**woooosh**

"A face of it maybe," Locke admitted. "Whatever that creature was, I think it somehow has the ability to take on the forms of the dead." He looked at Jack.

Jack had put things together. "Why? How?"

"I still don't know all the details," Locke said. "But come on, a lot of us saw things on the island that just couldn't have been there. "

Kate and James were nodding separately. Juliet had a different concern. "I knew the man was a monster, but I never thought him capable of patricide."

"He gave the order that led to the Purge. And you knew him better than I did. Ben had no regard for human life if it got in the way of what he wanted."

Juliet looked at John. "You said 'had'.

"He was definitely different from that point on."

**wooosh**

There were dozens of questions on John's lips the moment he walked back out into the field. But they died the second he got a look at Ben.

Someone had beaten Ben to a pulp before they had tied him up – Locke would've bet anything it was Jack – but even beaten down and tied up, there had still been something very vital in his presence when Locke had seen him. Even after all the time he'd been held prisoner in the hatch, he had always seemed like he was one step ahead of everybody else.

Not anymore. Even if it that had only been some kind of false front, it had clearly shaken the man to his core. The man who had led the Others was gone. In its place was a boy who realized his father was gone and he was never going to earn his love. And despite everything that the man had done to him, Locke couldn't help but feel sorry for him a little.

"Are you all right, Ben?"

He didn't answer for a very long time. Then he put his hands forward. "We have to get the temple, don't we?"

"Are you sure about that?"

"I'd rather not talk about it, John."

That was the last thing he said the rest of the way to the Temple. He just let John lead him like a lamb to the slaughter – something he would never have thought Ben Linus could be.

And Locke realized that while he might still need Ben to get him in the temple, he knew that putting him before the Others to be judged would be a moot point. Ben had already been judged by a higher power.

Locke just wasn't sure whether he'd passed or failed.

"All the shit he'd put you through, and you just let him off the hook?" James, not surprisingly, was not nearly as forgiving.

"The man hadn't been willing to give me answers before everything went south for him," Locke said calmly. "I didn't exactly think he'd be any more open after seeing his dead father."

"I know I wasn't," Jack actually was starting to feel sympathy for the man. Then he remembered what he had tried to do just three months earlier, and stomped down on any empathy he might have for Ben Linus. Hard.

"At any rate, I was now more focused then ever on finding the Temple, and getting to the next step in my journey," Locke said. "And a little less than two hours later, I finally reached it."

It was a massive structure – at least three hundred feet high and looking like a cross between something from Babylonian and Egyptian culture. Even surrounding by foliage, it was impressive, which led to yet another question.

"How is it none of us found this before?" he asked Ben.

"You need special glasses and a treasure map," Ben said in a tone that was just a shell of his old sarcastic voice.

He considered asking Ben how to get into the structure, but was not inclined to believe that he would give him a straight answer. In any case, he didn't have to look that hard to find a way in – albeit not one he would have expected.

There was a huge hole surrounding the left side. It didn't look the slightest bit inviting, and Locke was reminded of the warning Rousseau had given him. Nevertheless, he didn't see another way into the structure.

He untied Ben. "When was the last time you were here?"

"Not for a very long time, John. This isn't a place where I was particularly welcome," Ben said quietly.

"I thought you were the leader," John said surprised.

"We all answer to somebody, John," Ben sounded very tired. "And as much as you thought I was the Man behind the Curtain, there really is a wizard on this island. And he never deemed me worthy of meeting him."

Now there was real bitterness in Ben's voice – the first genuine emotion he'd heard in quite some time.

"This is holy ground, John," Ben said slowly. "This is where the miracles happen. Dharma spent fifteen years on this island, and all their silly experiments never came close to dealing with the magic that happens here. This is the only safe space on the island, the holiest of places. And I've never set foot on it. So, there's a very real chance I will burst into flames before I ever walk on the ground."

"In that case," Locke said, without a trace of irony, "after you." He still didn't believe a word out of the man's mouth, but he remembered something 'Henry' had mentioned not a month earlier about what might happen if 'his people' were led to a place that they would think was deserted and have his people waiting for them and capture him. He knew that had been an idle threat – and given everything that had happened between then and now, it was infinitely less likely – but one thing still hadn't changed: how little he trusted anything that came out of Ben Linus

Ben certainly seemed to realize how thin the ice he was standing on was; he didn't utter a word of protest, he just meekly walked down into the crevice. After a moment, Locke broke off a tree branch and lit it on fire. He looked around again, and went into the darkness.

John wasn't entirely certain what he was going to find when he lowered himself into the crevice: the dirt floor was definitely part of it, but the skeleton wasn't. At first, he thought this had to be Nadine, but a quick examination dismissed that idea: it was clearly male. Then he saw that the left arm was missing. A memory stirred of something Rousseau had told them on their march to the Black Rock: the Dark Territory where Montand had lost his arm. She had never gotten around to telling them how that happened, but clearly, this was where he'd ended up.

Ben seemed to pay it no mind. He walked past the skeleton as blandly as though it were a traffic light. Locke knew better than to let the man out of his sight, and they just kept going. But before they had gone more than fifty feet, the whispering started again.

Understandably, he was more concerned. If the monster came again, there was nowhere to run. "What _is _that?" he demanded of Ben.

But before any answer could come (assuming he was going to answer at all) a wind blew through the tunnel, and the torch went out.

The darkness was even more imposing then before, and seconds later, Locke knew that they were no longer alone. They didn't bother with darts or slingshots this time. They just threw a bag over his head.

He had no idea how long they were hauled through the darkness, though it couldn't have been more than a few minutes. Eventually, they pulled the bag off his head, and he saw that Ben to had his hands tied behind his back.

There were at least four or five Others walking with them, all of them heavily armed. "Where are you taking us?" John demanded.

No answer. "Don't you know who I am?" he tried again.

"I wouldn't waste your breath, John," Ben said dully. "They have orders not to speak to any outsiders."

"From who?!" John demanded in frustration. A thought occurred to him. "You knew they'd be waiting for us."

"Well, I did owe you one for leaving me for the monster to eat." There was a touch of the old Ben in that remark, but just like his sarcasm earlier, it was only a husk of his former self.

At this point, John decided just to wait it out. If nothing else, Richard would be at the Temple, and he would certainly clear them to go forward. In the meantime, he could observe his surroundings if he stayed quiet.

He didn't have to wait very long. They came to what could best be described as a moat. There was an even larger set of walls that, if anything, looked even larger than the pyramid that they'd entered. They had clearly reached the outskirts of the temple.

Locke and Ben were more or less yanked across the bridge. The fact that they seemed to have the same level of disdain for both the outsider and the man who had been with them for nearly thirty years should've brought comfort to John but didn't, in part because he now realized that there was no certainty that those in charge now had any use for either.

As they reached the other side, two men appeared out of a door. One was an Asian man with a beard and a mustache that seemed remarkably coifed considering where they were. The other was a man with curly haired and wire rimmed glasses. Locke found himself being thrown to the ground.

The elder man said something in Japanese. "We warned you about coming here again, Benjamin." He spoke with the same kind of disdain that Tom had used to him six weeks ago when he had told him, Jack and Sawyer that 'this is not your island. This is our island."

"I didn't have much of a choice in the matter, Dogen," Ben said defiantly.

Dogen spoke in an even angrier voice. "Bad enough your plans have ended in ruin," the interpreter translated. The fact that the people in the Temple seemed to know what had happened back on the beach before Ben's own people did made a chill run down John's spine. "Now you dare to bring an outsider to this place. I should have you both shot right now."

"Wait a minute!" Locke interjected. "I'm supposed to be here!"

"And what makes you think you have the right?" Dogen said through the interpreter.

"I want to talk with Richard!"

The name clearly changed the tenor of the meeting. Dogen maintained his poker face, but the interpreter came down the stairs. "Who are you?" he demanded.

With a confidence he did not feel, he said: "My name is John Locke."

This time, the effect was clearly electric. Even Dogen was clearly affected by it. He shouted some more instructions towards the rest of the group. "Take Linus, and put him in the court," he said through the interpreter.

Ben didn't even put up a struggle this time. This seemed to confirm what Locke had only suspected: Ben's time was truly over.

The interpreter walked down so that he and Locke were on the same level. "My name is Lennon," he said quietly. "Would you come this way, John? We have a lot to talk about."


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

At this point, there was a knock on the door to the living room. It was a sign as to how much all of the survivors had acclimated back to civilization that a few of them – Claire in particular – actually jumped a little at the sudden noise.

"Pardon me," Carmen Reyes said quietly. "I know you didn't want to be disturbed, but we've finished preparing dinner."

Everybody looked at the window. The sun had begun to set, and none of them had noticed, they'd been so intent on Locke's story. They all looked at John.

Locke shrugged. "If you're going to wait to the end of the story, there'll be ants crawling around our food, and I think we all got tired of that on the island."

"He's right," Jack told them. "There's no way he'll be able to explain what happened over the past two years in one sitting. I think it's probably in all our interest to take a break."

Hurley looked at his mother. "Give us a minute and we'll be in there, Ma." He got to his feet. "This is going to take longer than sitting through than all six episodes."

"Well, it's already more interesting than the first one," James reminded Hurley.

The two exchanged smiles. Locke seemed genuinely baffled by this. "When did they start getting so chummy?" he asked Kate.

"Don't you know?" Kate responded. "Ever since he came back, he's a kinder, gentler Sawyer."

**L-**

The Tranhs had put together a simple spread of fried chicken and other side dishes that was a bit classier than the kind you got at Mr. Clucks. It was more of a sit down buffet, so every spent the next ten minutes concentrating on getting food in front of them, and beginning to eat.

Locke waited until they were eating before looking at Jack. "I want to thank you all for not telling the world about the island," he said.

Jack shook his head. "It was more out of an idea of personal preservation than a desire to keep the island safe," he said sincerely. "Hurley's been very discreet about what Santa Rosa was like, but none of us wanted to spend any time in a place like that."

Walt nodded. "Yeah, they're not a lot of fun, Mr. Locke."

"Oh, I don't doubt it." John looked at Hugo. "I take it you know by now my mother spent some time at Santa Rosa, as well as similar institutions."

Hurley finished taking a bite of chicken before nodding. "It was before my time there, but I figured you could've lived without my bringing it up."

"It's all right. Emily was never very stable." He looked around. "I'm assuming that you told your mother about what happened to us."

Hurley swallowed to gain time. "Uh, yeah. Should I have not?"

Now Locke shook his head. "I told Helen everything that happened on the island when I was there," he said quietly. "A lot of it didn't make me look good, but considering that I came back for her, I figured she deserved to know why I didn't come back in the first place."

That was a big deal from a man who really thought the island was miraculous, and had seemed to be willing to do everything in his power to keep them there. "Who exactly have you told since I got back?" Locke asked.

"I told Nadia everything," Sayid said quietly.

Locke considered this. "Even about Shannon?"

Sayid lowered his head. "It is ironic given all the horrible things that happened on that island that my liaison with Shannon troubled me the most," he said calmly. "I was heading to Los Angeles because that's where she was living. And I did something despicable to find that information."

Only Jack had ever learned the details of what Sayid had been doing in Sydney, and in all honesty, he had been more appalled about what his government had been willing to do with Essam than what Sayid had made him do. Jack hadn't liked when people shared their darkest secrets with him, but in this case, he was more than willing to make an exception.

"My wife has always been a better person than me," Sayid was saying. "She was even willing to say there was nothing to forgive her for."

Juliet spoke up. "I told my sister everything, too," she said. "Though I probably spoke of it in darker terms then you ever would, John."

"Well, that's understandable," John said with equanimity. "Ben essentially held you prisoner. I can understand why you never felt like you should've been there." He paused. "Even though you were there for a reason, too."

Juliet looked a little irked at this. "Excuse me?"

"I'll get there, believe me." Locke looked at Jack. "I realize most of the people you'd talk to about are in this room, but have you told anybody else?"

Jack looked at John. "I tried to hide it for a very long time. The people at my hospital know I was on Oceanic 815. I've given some of the details in the vaguest possible sense to a few people I trust, but I've only really shared everything with two doctors at the hospital."

Locke raised an eyebrow. "I honestly thought you'd never tell anyone."

"It was a special case." Jack then explained what had happened to Izzie and Alex, and how he finally decided to share his story almost as a distraction to two people who were going through the worst thing that they might ever have to live through – even worse than surviving a plane crash.

"How is she doing?" John asked when Jack finished.

"She's been cancer-free for more than six months, "Jack said. "It looks good right now, but we're just going to have to wait and see."

"If you don't mind me asking, why them in particular?"

Jack had thought a long time. "I guess I wanted to give her something to live for, corny as that sounds. And in a way, it was therapeutic for me as well. Maybe for all of us. By telling them, it helped me – and by extension, everybody else – a chance to work through our issues with John. It helped me realize how self-righteous I was on the island, and how that affected my attitude towards you in particular."

"Well, I didn't exactly endear myself to any of you when we were there," Locke admitted. "I was right about the island, but because I never really made myself part of the group, I'm not shocked that nobody was inclined to listen to me."

There was a brief, not uncomfortable silence when everybody just ate their food. Then Desmond spoke up. "Penny and I were going to tell you about this later, but you might as well hear this now." He then talked about the meeting they'd had with Daniel and Charlotte two days earlier, stopping just short of explaining Dan's connection to Widmore.

Sayid waited until they were finished to reveal that the group had already met Daniel and Charlotte – Sayid and Nadia in Italy, then at the concert that had served as a tribute to Charlie.

Locke considered this. "They'd never heard of the island before you and Penny brought up?"

"They knew things that were tangential to the island," Penny said slowly. "They knew who the Hanso family was, and Charlotte had heard of the DeGroot. But as far as the island itself, I think they knew less about it than I did. The only person who might have been able to tell Dan about the island was Hawking, and Dan was adamant about the two of them being estranged."

Locke now seemed a little concerned. "This Hawking woman – nobody's seen or heard from her since Widmore fell from power?"

This time Sayid spoke up. "I paid a visit to the church after the sweeps started. Not only was it deserted, it looked like no one had been there since James and I visited the place."

"You think she knew what was coming?" Locke asked.

"That woman knew a lot more than she was telling. I think now we know why."

James disagreed. "If she knew so goddamn much, why wasn't she on the island in the first place?"

"Penny's father was actually on the island at one point," Locke said quietly. "It didn't stop them from him having to leave."

Sayid looked at Locke. "What was their connection with the island, John?"

"Honestly, I know even less than you do," Locke said. "I knew that Widmore had a connection to the island, I know that he was recruited to live on the island as a teenager, I know that he held a leadership position for a time, during the time Dharma was on the island, that he was instrumental in the Purge, and that there was some kind of power struggle with Ben, which he lost. But there's a lot I don't know. How he managed to get off the island, how he made his money, and how he ended up being exiled from the island in the first place." He looked at Penny. "I was honestly hoping you would be able to fill in some of the gaps."

"I'll do the best I can," Penny acknowledged. "But right now, you're the one with the story to tell, John."

Locke gave a small smile. "And I'll tell you a bit more of it. But first, let's finish eating."

**l-**

"If some of Ben's people were willing to welcome me with open arms, Dogen's people – I never did learn if that was even his first or last name – never seemed happy to see him," Locke told them when they finished eating. "And considering that their reward for Ben, who had given a lifetime of service, was to basically throw him to the wolves, I didn't have much hope for myself."

"Didn't Dogen talk to you?" Claire asked.

"Now that was a conversation in itself."

**WHOOOSH**

They wandered into a small room that seemed anachronistic even by the standards of the island. There was a bookshelf, some kind of device that looked too much like a rack for Locke's comfort, what appeared to be some kind of car battery, and a desk that had various paraphernalia on it, most prominently a baseball and a bonsai garden. Locke took this all in without a word.

"Where are the rest of your group?" Dogen said through Lennon.

"I don't know," John said quietly. "Anyway, considering how you and your people have been treating them, I'm not surprised they've been so hostile towards you."

Dogen walked over to his desk and picked up the plant. He began to clip it. "Who told you about here in the first place?"

Locke was about to answer, when he realized something that should've occurred to him immediately. Lennon had never translated any of his responses back to Dogen. "If you want an honest answer, you'd do well to drop your own deception," he said quietly.

Dogen's expression didn't change. "Ben's act of being all-knowing and all-powerful got tiring very quickly. So if you want to go on pretending that you don't understand everything I'm saying –"

"I don't like the way that English sounds on my tongue," Dogen said in perfect English.

Locke considered this is a victory. "Well, that's a start. Now before you ask any more questions, why don't you answer some of mine? Did you know who I was before I came here?"

Dogen considered this carefully, "Any question I answer, you have to answer one of mine."

"Fine," Locke said reluctantly. "I know about the temple because Ben mentioned it. You want to cut off one of his hands for that betrayal, I wouldn't object."

Dogen's expression revealed nothing, but it was pretty clear that Ben was even less popular here than he'd been at the Barracks. "Your coming to this island was decided long ago, by a much wiser man than me."

"So Jacob's real." Locke deliberately did not frame his response as a question.

"Who said anything about Jacob?" This time Lennon spoke up.

"Ben took me to see 'him'." Locke's emphasis on the last word made it very clear he still wasn't sold on what he had seen. "Of course, considering that Ben told me never saw Jacob less than three hours ago, does kind of throw that possibility into question. "

"My turn," he said before they could react. "What is this place?"

Now Dogen and Lennon exchanged glances. "This is the most sacred place on the island, the one where men are judged and the sick are healed."

_Well, that was vague. I might as well have asked Ben for more answers. _

"Where are the rest of your people?" Dogen asked.

"They're not my people any more than the ones in this temple are Ben Linus'" Locke said with some derision. "As to where they are, they might very well be about to leave the island right now."

Now Dogen seemed genuinely concerned. "That is not permitted."

"Are those Jacob's rules? That's not my question, by the way," Locke wasn't sure where he was getting this infusion of calm. For all he knew, these two men might be waiting for the slightest moment to strap him to that rack.

"What is your question?"

Locke took a little while to think before speaking. "This entire island is special. What makes this specific place more holy than, say, the Swan?"

Dogen didn't say anything for a few seconds. Later, Locke would learn that the reasons the Japanese man was so puzzled was because he'd never even heard of the Dharma Initiative, much less the stations that had been built.

"This place requires more protection than any of the others. If something were to go wrong, we'd know about it here first." Dogen was speaking with a little less certainty than he had the first time. "Where did Benjamin take you?"

"A cabin." Locke said simply. "And since Jacob clearly doesn't live there, that leads me to my next question. What does the island need protection from?"

There was a long pause. John genuinely thought he wasn't going to get an answer this time, and when he did, it made even less sense that some of the ones he'd gotten before.

"From _him."_

_WHOOOSH_

"So let me get this straight," Hurley interjected. "There was some kind of like, Palpatine on the island?"

"I don't think I would've been making those kinds of allusions, Hugo," Locke said calmly, "but there was apparently some kind of source of a great evil on the island."

"Where was he? Who was he?" James demanded.

Locke held up a hand. "I'm telling you the story as it was told to me, and just like the rest of us, the answers came very slowly. I did get an answer to this question, but not for awhile, and certainly not from Dogen."

"But he was the guy in the cabin," Hurley was still trying to get an answer to this.

"That, I never got a straight answer one way or the other. And I might as well tell you, that question is ultimately moot. I was never able to find the cabin again."

"Did you ever go looking for it again?"

"Well, that would've involved leaving the temple," Locke said. "And that, in itself, was something that didn't happen for quite some time. Not that I was actually considering it right away. I still wanted answers."

"Did you get beyond the answering a question with a question phase?" Kate asked.

"Yes, but not then. In fact, that was the last question Dogen was willing to answer for quite some time. That also turned out to be a good thing."

"Why?" Kate demanded.

"Because right about then, it turned out that I wasn't the only people who had just arrived at the Temple.

**WHOOOSH**

Locke had really hoped that he could Dogen to stop being so vague, but at that moment, a young African-American man in his twenties ran into the room.

"What is it, Justin?" Lennon demanded.

"I realize this is a bad time, but Richard and the rest of his people have finally gotten here," Justin said apologetically.

For the first time, Dogen's tone changed when he resumed speaking in Japanese. It was hard to tell given that he didn't understand a word, but Locke could sense just the slightest bit of deference in the tone.

"Tell them to go the spring," Lennon translated. "We'll meet them there in five minutes."

Justin nodded and exited quickly. "You said that you wanted to talk with Richard, "Dogen said quietly. "So do I."

"Do you answer to him?" Locke asked.

"The only one I answer to is Jacob," Dogen mentioned his name for the first time with almost reverence in his tone. "And considering that Richard is the only one who talks to Jacob, you can understand why I'd like to hear from him."

This made even less sense than the conversation they'd had earlier – if Richard was the only one who spoke with Jacob, how could Dogen answer to him? But Locke had a feeling that Richard might be more willing to answer questions than this man who wasn't even willing to speak English to his own people. Besides, he wanted to see how Ben would deal with him.

It was another endless walk, down a different route than the one that they had taken going to Dogen's office. John was beginning to realize this was a pattern with the Others – they never took you down the same route twice. For the first time, he wondered if this was some kind of codicil of Jacob's rules.

They finally ended up in a courtyard. There were pillars everywhere that seemed more like they were Egyptian design. Locke wondered why it hadn't occurred to him to ask who had built this temple and when. Then he realized that he thought that this was another of those questions that he just wouldn't get an answer to.

At the center of this courtyard was a giant spring that led out into a pool. The water was running clear, and there was this hourglass with black and white grains of sand.

There were also a brace of Others guarding an unhappy Ben Linus. The man seemed to have this unfailing ability to piss people off and be held prisoner. He wondered why he'd ever thought anyone could follow this man willingly in the first place. Then he remembered that no one ever had.

About a minute after they got there, a new group walked in through with the gates. Some of the faces looked vaguely familiar – and for some reason, two children were with them – but both Locke's and Dogen's eyes were drawn to Richard Alpert.

Once again, Locke wondered what this man knew. The Others – at least until he had come upon them in the Barracks – seems to pride themselves in wearing dirty and raggedy clothes. It was impossible to imagine Richard ever looking like that. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, yet John could see no sign of insect bites. His clothes seemed practically immaculate, and even though he had to be aware of the crisis at the beach, he seemed the picture of calm. This was the man he should have been talking to from the beginning, not trying to get answers out of Ben.

Richard looked right at Dogen, and though neither said a word, Locke could almost sense the Japanese man genuflecting a little. Then he looked at John. If he was surprised to see him here, he gave no sign of it.

""Good to see you again, John," he said calmly.

"Given the circumstances, yes," Locke told him. "I suppose you know that Ben's plans have failed and that the other passengers are planning to leave the island as we speak."

Richard didn't even throw Ben a glance, even though the man was less than ten feet away. More than anything else, this confirmed that Ben's time was over.

"I won't pretend that's ideal," he said coolly, "but right now, we have more pressing issues to deal with."

"Such as?" Lennon asked.

"Charles has decided he wants to be in charge again. " Now he looked at Ben. "And he's made it very clear that he wants Ben as his prisoner. He's sent a freighter with a team of mercenaries. Their priority is to take Ben off the island, and to kill anyone who gets in their way."

Now Dogen looked at Ben with something close to rage. "How long have you know about this?" he practically snarled. In English.

Ben, who'd basically, been in a brown study ever since Locke had taken him prisoner, now seemed genuinely defensive. "I ordered our people to come here in preparation for a siege," he began.

"Less the ten people you sent to the beach," Richard now acknowledged Ben for the first time. "All of whom are dead now, by the way. And given that no one is jamming the signal anymore, I assume that Mikhail is dead as well."

"Did Isabel go along with this?" Lennon asked quietly.

"Isabel was one of the ones who died." Richard said. "Along with Ryan and Tom."

Dogen looked even angrier. "We are approaching what very well may be a war for the island, and thanks to your blundering, we've lost most of our best soldiers!"

"I did what was the island wanted," Ben began slowly.

"Don't try your act with us," Dogen snapped. "We know that Jacob never chose you!"

For the first time since he had shown up in the Swan, Ben looked like he was completely blindsided, as well as just how much danger he was. His eyes finally rested on John. And though Locke didn't think himself a petty person, he couldn't resist a dig. "I guess we're even again," he said calmly.

Dogen walked right up to Ben, and grabbed him by the scruff. "If it weren't for that fact that Widmore wants you alive, I would cut your head off right now," he said coldly. "And thanks to your magnificent incompetence, we now need every armed man we can handle."

Locke thought he could feel Ben shudder from across the hall.

He turned to Lennon. "Put him in my office and strap him down," he said calmly. "We'll find out what he has to tell us later."

Lennon had seemed calm to this point as well, but when he gave instructions to two of his followers, he seemed just as angry as Dogen had been.

Richard seemed to know what was about to happen. "Cindy, would you take the children and get them something to eat?" he said, still more placid then everybody else. "We need to have a council."

Cindy had looked vaguely familiar the first time they'd met, and suddenly Locke where he knew her from. She'd been on the plane. She'd been the flight attendant who'd told him that the special chair they need to load him on to the plane wasn't working. Which meant she was also the same Cindy who'd been in the tail section, and who the Others had just taken minutes before the two groups had collided in the worst possible way.

This led to another startling realization. The children. Ana Lucia had been adamant about finding the fate of 'the kids', who'd also been taken from the group nearly two weeks after the crash. The three of them were now the newest Others, and given how all of them had behaved towards him – Cindy, in particular – it was clear they were now fully indoctrinated into the Others way of life.

For the first time since he'd sworn loyalty to the island, Locke began to have real doubts about their being some kind of higher purpose to all this. It was one thing to say that he had been chosen, even that all the Others had their entire lives meant to come here. But two children, neither of whom could be more than eight? Children who were probably still missing their parents? Locke had spent his entire childhood raised in foster care. He knew first-hand the kind of damage that could do to you psychologically. And he'd been raised in civilization. These children had been forcibly abducted, were still probably wondering if they'd ever see their parents again.

"Did Jacob ask for the children?" he found himself saying.

"We don't have time to deal –"Dogen started.

"Make time," Locke said forcibly.

"No one comes to the island by chance, John," Richard said calmly.

"Do they even have any comprehension of what's going on?" Locke was surprised to find that he was getting angry. "Or does the island really believe that children should be taken from their parents?"

Richard had the good grace to look at least a little guilty. "Ben and Ethan acted on their own with Claire," he said quietly. "As for Walt, you know he was special."

"And are these children special too? Cause I'm pretty sure Zach still wants kisses for his teddy bear at night."

It was a shot in the dark, but the minute John said he knew he'd struck a blow with Richard, who at least seemed to have more of a moral compass than Ben ever had.

"And now that I think of it, maybe taking pregnant women from their husbands isn't exactly the ideal approach either." Locke said. "Sun was upset when she thought her husband was dead. I don't think she'd feel grateful knowing that you were going to take him away from Jin forever."

Richard's remained ever patient. "I didn't agree with everything Ben did. That's why you're here, John. We need new leadership –"

"And what kind of leadership _is _that, Richard?" Locke cut in. "Because it's pretty clear right now, Ben was never even the leader of much of anything. You clearly don't take orders from him, I never even knew Dogen existed until just now, and you all seem to be taking orders from a man no one else on the island has seen. And while everybody's been very clear on the idea that I have been chosen, you've all been maddeningly vague on what exactly we've been chosen _for _or why. Now, I've done everything the island has asked of me since I came here. People have died because of it, I completely isolated myself from people who I should've at least trusted a little, and no one has been willing to explain, even in a roundabout way, what it's all _for. _Some of you have told us that we don't belong on this island, some of you have told me that we're supposed to be on this island, and since all you've done since we've come here is basically torment us, I'm not sure I'm inclined to believe either story at this point. And now you say that another group of outsiders is coming to kill us all because someone else wants the island. Now I've proven over and over that I will give my life for the island. But unless someone tells me why, I'm inclined to wait for whoever this Charles is to get here, and see what offer he has to make."

This was a long speech – it may have been the most he'd ever said at one time to anybody on the island, Oceanic or Other. Richard and Dogen clearly were surprised. John was frankly surprised by the breadth of his remarks. But he'd spent weeks waiting to see if Ben was ever going to tell him anything about the island, and he'd kept pawning him off. He didn't know either of these men at all, but based on first impressions, it was really starting to seem like he was in for more of the same. Part of him knew that protecting the island was important, and he should just go ahead and keep doing it. But another part of him – maybe the part that really thought that Jack might be right to be so skeptical – thought that he might never have a better opportunity to get the answers he'd been searching for.

Richard looked at John for a minute, and then turned to Dogen. "Give us a few minutes."

Dogen looked a little perturbed; buy clearly did a better job hiding than he had with Ben. He walked off slowly.

"I've lived on this island for a very long time. Longer then you can possibly remember," Richard began. "But I still remember what is what like to be you. To have questions as to why I was here. What this place was. And what the great plan was. And I've been patient, even when the answers were not forthcoming." He turned around. "Other people, who have been in your position, have not been willing to be so understanding."

"Charles Widmore came to this island when he was just a boy," Richard said slowly. "Unlike your friends and so many of the others who have come to this island, he came of his own free will. Jacob thought he had potential. But I never saw what he did. Almost from the beginning, he never looked at the island the way you or I have. Everything he did was always the means to an end."

"And what was his end?" Locke asked.

"Possession," Richard turned around. "Charles doesn't look at this island, and see something miraculous. He sees a treasure, something that can only work as long as it benefits him. For more than a quarter of a century, everything he ever did was based on one purpose and one purpose only: how he could own the island. And no one could be allowed to get in his way. When the Dharma Initiative came to the island in 1973, he wanted our people to murder them in their sleep the minute they started setting up grounds on the island. As it was, we fought with them more months before we agreed to a Truce. And Charles kept looking for ways to violate it."

There was a lot to unpack in that statement. John seized on what he thought was the most relevant. "If he was so dangerous, why did you make him your leader?"

"He wasn't yet," Richard said slowly. "But he was trying to maintain a power base. He began a relationship with the woman who was our leader. Someone who'd been on the island nearly as long as him, and who viewed the Dharma Initiative as nearly as dangerous. Finally, when she became pregnant with his child, she chose to leave the island to raise it. They've probably never seen each other since."

"I assume he took over the leadership then," John asked.

"But around that same time, a member of Dharma – a child who was barely older than Charles had been when he first came to the island – came into our midst. He hated Dharma, and said he wanted to join us."

"Ben."

Richard nodded. "When I saw him, I didn't want him to be danger. But he said things that made me think he was special in a way that Charles never was. I told him there might be a way for him to join us, but he'd have to be very patient."

Ben had that quality in spades, but given what he knew; John didn't know if Ben would've had the stamina to wait ten, maybe fifteen years to carry out his plans. He knew he'd help carry them out – the mass grave was testament to that = but was he that patient?

"I know it's hard to accept given what you see of him today, but Ben was once a sweet, innocent child," Richard said quietly. "When he came to us the first time, he was practically in tears. When we finally accepted him as one of our own, it was under extreme circumstances, and it eroded him a great deal. Charles Widmore had a lot to do with breaking Ben down. Partly because the decision was made without his authority, but mostly because he had just been ordained and he could see that Ben was a threat to that leadership."

"And Ben ended up overthrowing Widmore?" Locke asked.

"After the Purge happened, Ben's devotion to the island was unquestioned. The fact is, even when he was in charge, Charles's never was. He left the island constantly, before and after he became leader. He used the resources we gave him to become a millionaire and a powerful man. There were rules against this of course, but no one was willing to challenge him on them." Richard paused. "Until Ben did. He found out that Widmore had fathered an illegitimate child with a woman on the mainland. Then he said he had a meeting with Jacob, and that Jacob considered he had betrayed his loyalty to the island."

'Said' he had a meeting. "You knew he was lying. And yet somehow, Widmore ended up exiled from the island. Why did you let that happen?"

"I knew how dangerous a man he was. When he was seventeen, he led a battalion of our people to defend the island against seventeen U.S. Army men. He killed five of them himself. Even though he was following orders, he was brutal even then – in order to get information, he cut off the hand off one soldier just to make a point. Then he killed him anyway." Richard shook his head. "I couldn't understand why Jacob didn't order him exiled right then. After nearly forty years, it became very clear that he was never going to do it on his own. No one's supposed to leave the island after they get here. Jacob was willing to make an exception in this case. At least he's never protested."

There was even more to unpack in this statement than everything else. "How long have you been working for Jacob?" Locke finally asked.

"Since the day I came here," was all Richard was willing to say. "And I'll tell you the rest later, John, but right now, we have a far more pressing concern. Charles isn't that far away. And he's had more than fifteen years to hold a grudge."

"He wouldn't be satisfied if we just handed Ben over to his people," John put forth.

"Charles knows the secrets of this island better than many of the rest of us," Richard countered. "Including how the Purge took place. "

"I don't understand. " Locke said.

"The Temple is a special place, John. One of the most special on the island," Richard said. "The Dharma stations, as remarkable as you and your people thought they were are by far the most dangerous. You saw first how deadly the Swan was. But there are two places that are still intact on the island that are just as dangerous. Charles knows this, and no doubt he's sending his people to one such place the second they make landfall."

Locke remembered from the film that he had watched over and over that there the Swan had been of six stations. The Pearl was one, but it was deserted. He had personally blown the Flame up. Jack, Kate and Sawyer had been held on a station so big it had needed its own island. Eko had found the edited film in another. That left one. "How long would it take to get there from here?" he asked Richard.

"About half a day," Richard told him.

"Are there enough of our people so that we could put up a fight in case we fail?" Richard had to have noticed the implication of the pronouns.

"It's not a matter of a fight, it's a matter of weaponry," Richard said slowly. "This team is going to have an arsenal bigger than some militias."

The sky was darkening. Locke was a brave man, but he wasn't willing to brave the jungle at night. "Talk with Dogen, and get some people ready. At first light, you and I are leading an expedition to this station."

Richard was clearly a little surprised by this. "You should probably know that Ben is one of the only people still alive who knows how to work this station."

_Why doesn't that surprise me? _"If he's properly motivated, and considering what he did to try and stop Jack from making contact we know he is, he'll help us."

Richard didn't raise any objections, which would seem to mean that John had been approved to be a leader, at least for now. "I do have two conditions though, "John told him. "The first is that you make no effort to impede the Oceanic survivors from leaving the island, if they haven't already."

Richard raised a very dark eyebrow. "John, there are rules. Once you arrive on the island –-"

"The rules didn't apply to Widmore, and I can't see why they shouldn't apply to people who are a lot better than he sounds," Locke said firmly. "Consider this a policy shift from your new leader."

Richard considered this for a long moment, and then finally nodded. "What's the second condition?"

"When this is over, if we survive, you're going to tell me your story," Locke looked at him. "How and when you came to the island, how you met Jacob, and how you got your current position. Whatever that is."

Richard looked at him. "The whole reason I'm still on the island after all these years should indicate something to you."

John knew that this implied a lot. This island might be a magical place, but just from what Richard had told him, and what he said about Jacob, Richard might have been here for a very, very long time. This meant that Jacob had been here even longer. Which meant—"

"It does, Richard," John said with a genuine smile. "It means I have extra motivation to survive the coming battle."


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Locke paused, and took a drink of water. "I think that's all I can do for the day," he said quietly.

Understandably, Hurley had the strongest reaction. "What, you can't just leave it like that, dude!"

"I would love to do nothing more than continue, Hugo," John said with his typical equanimity, "but in case you haven't noticed, it happens to be past Walt's bedtime. And I'm pretty sure all the parents among want to check on their children."

Sun looked at the clock. It was just past 1:15 AM. Locke had been speaking on and off, for more than six hours. "He has a point. I don't know if Rachel bargained for us being out for this long."

Juliet gave a small smile. "She's used to it by now. Still, it has been a long day already. And as much as I want to hear more, I'm also well aware that there's no way John's going to finish his story in one day."

Jack nodded. "It took me nearly a month of regulated sessions just to tell what happened the three months we were all on the island. Best case scenario, it's going to take John at least that long, and that's if he does a lot of editing."

"To be perfectly honest, I knew that I wasn't going to get finished tonight," Locke admitted. "I wasn't even sure you'd been willing to listen to me. Now that I know you will, we can figure out the rest from here."

Kate looked at Locke. "Our typical schedule is to get together every weekend. Desmond and Penny have been coming every month or so. How much effort would it take you guys to readjust your schedules?"

The Humes thought this over for a moment. "This long narrative doesn't end with us another trip to the island, does it?" Desmond said.

"Absolutely not," Locke said firmly. "One thing I know for certain: we couldn't get back there if we wanted to."

The fact that Locke was saying a statement that so blatantly went against everything they had known about the man after the plane crash signified more than anything how profoundly different John was now. It wasn't just that he'd said it; it was that he'd sounded _relieved _that he didn't have to go back to the place he'd been reborn, physically and spiritually.

"Well, in that case, I think we should all go and get some sleep," Jack told everybody. "Including you, John. This has to have been exhausting." There was absolutely no condescension in his tone whatsoever, something that no one in the group could've figured possible two years ago.

"It's nicer when you have someone to come home too," Locke said. "But you know that as well I do."

Jack put his hand on John's shoulder, and gave it a comforting grip. "I'm not going that far. In case you haven't noticed, Hurley's house is big enough for a lot of guests."

"Somehow that doesn't surprise me," Locke said. "Hugo's always been good at taking care of people." He got up. "I actually wanted to talk to him about something. Hopefully, something that he can help with."

"If I can, I will," Hurley said easily. "Is it something, like, you need to deal with in private?"

Locke shook his head, "I need you to bring me back from the dead."

Hurley froze for a moment, his eyes looking everywhere, as if he was truly seeing a ghost.

"Take a minute, Hoss," James said slowly in a comforting tone that was still somewhat hard to square with the old Sawyer. "You got this. Just think it through."

And indeed, it only took Hurley about ten seconds. "Ohhhh," he finally realized. "You mean like the way the world everybody on the plane was for about a month."

"I know that you managed to work things out for Walt and Michael," Locke said simply. "I realize that it's going to be a bit more complicated for me, considering its been more than two years since the crash, but you must have been able to work something out.

Hurley nodded. "You're going to have to go through a lot of paperwork," he told John. "So much so that at some point you may just want to say the heck with it."

Jack, who'd been heading upstairs with Kate, had clearly caught this last bit. "There's paperwork involved with everything these days," he told John. "The harder part will be trying to figure out how you managed to survive and make your way back to civilization in the first place."

"I'm guessing you just that I died on impact with the rest of the passengers," Locke said slowly.

"It was the simplest thing at the time," Jack admitted. "Didn't quite seem fair to everybody who had died on the island – especially Boone and Shannon – but it was the best we could do. "

"I told Charlie's family what happened to him," Claire said quietly. "I figured his brother at least deserved to know."

Again, everybody was ignoring the elephant of Ana Lucia. Michael had been silently appreciative, even though he'd still had some days where he wanted to drive down to the precinct and confess to her mother.

Kate saw that once again the mood was getting dark. "I have an attorney who might be able to cut through the paperwork. He did a good job at my trial and getting my sentence commuted a few months ago. Was polite enough not to press that hard, and he takes attorney-client privilege seriously."

"Does he handle cases that have to cut through bureaucracy?" Locke asked.

"He might find it a step down from his usual work," Kate told him. "Alan is one of the best trial lawyers in the country. He said his only disappointment with my entire case was he never got to deliver a closing argument. Said he rarely got to do for a client who he thought was worthy of it."

"How much did you end up telling him about what happened on the island?" Locke asked.

"Very little actually," Kate said. "It wasn't relevant to my criminal trial, so he never pressed any of us that hard about it. I gave him some of the details after I was released – I figured I owed him that much – and even fudged the way it was, he said he actually admired us even more. 'If I'd been in your situation, I would've been dead in a week' is how he put it."

Locke considered this. "I come out of the woodwork, he's going to have a lot of questions," he said slowly. "Questions that might ended up causing more chaos for all of you."

They were all looking at Jack again, who considered this momentous question with a shrug. "The Oceanic crash has been a dead letter story for awhile," he said simply. "It'll probably raise some chaos when you resurface, but my guess the media won't spend a lot of time on it. "

"They barely raised an eyebrow when Walt and I resurfaced," Michael said calmly. "Except…" He looked at Jack, who surprisingly looked at Juliet.

"Yeah," Jack said. "If the media gets a hold of the fact that a man who was in a wheelchair four years before he got on our plane, there are going to be questions. And they will be severe. Mostly for you, John."

"You can understand why I've spent the last couple of months trying to stay out of sight," Locke told them.

"And we're grateful for your discretion," Juliet told them. "I think there might be a way to work around it, but we'll need to think on it a bit."

Locke looked a little puzzled. "I'm not sure I follow."

"It's a little late to go into details. I'll tell you tomorrow." Jack said. "But I do think a good night's rest will help us all."

Jin walked over to Locke. "You want us to drive you home?" he asked

Locke thought for a minute. "Actually, I think I should get a ride home with Desmond and Penny, if they wouldn't mind."

"Not a problem, but why us in particular?" Penny asked.

"There's still a couple of things about the island that I'm trying to put together," Locke said quietly. "With the exception of Juliet, who even she has to admit was kept in the dark, you and your husband probably know more about the island than anybody else. Desmond was there longer, and well, you must have gotten some information trying to find out what your father knew."

"We'll tell you what we know, but you think we can answer?" Desmond said.

Locke gave a slightly more honest smile. "Well, that and I've always wanted to ride in a limo."

**LLLLL**

"Alright boxman, what do you wanna know?" Desmond said, as the Hume's limousine pulled out.

"There were a lot of things about the Swan that you knew about that I didn't," Locke said slowly, "but I'm going to deal with the one that might have answered a lot more questions for everybody. Who drew the map?"

Penny looked a little puzzled, and Desmond had to think for a moment. "Honestly, that was all Kelvin's thing. He'd go out in that Hazmat suit and leave me to push the button for maybe half a day. Then a little later, he'd activate the blast doors – you know how that worked – and he'd start drawing on one of them with Dharma detergent, which I guess doubled as invisible ink. I remember asking him once how he remembered where he'd left off, and he said: 'Very carefully'."

"So you never saw the thing?" Locke asked.

"I wouldn't have known how to read if I could. I could never figure out how Kelvin did."

"He used a black light. " Locke paused, then told Desmond and Penny what had happened when the lockdown had occurred in the hatch trapping him and 'Henry' with no way to get out and the timer counting down. He told him how he had been trapped under the blast door listening to the alarm blare, and then the lights had gone out. Then the black light had gone on, and for a glorious minute, Locke had seen the entire thing. He'd spent the next four days, trying his best to recreate even a fraction of it, never sure he'd come anywhere close to it.

Desmond shook his head. "I searched that madhouse from top to bottom, I don't think I ever saw a black light. It must have some kind of secret installation that Radzinsky put in where no one could find it.

"Who?"

"According to Kelvin, he's the bloke who designed the Swan in the first place. He edited the orientation film – don't ask me why – and he started to drawing that map. And if Kelvin's telling the truth, he killed himself there."

Locke raised an eyebrow. "Why would you doubt him?"

"Well, he lied about the air outside being toxic, and he put the idea in my head that the button was a sucker's game before he died," Desmond shook his head. "Hell, he might never even have been in Dharma in the first place."

"That map probably could've solved a lot of our problems if I'd known how to access it," Locke said. "Of course, I might've been able to read it, if I hadn't blown it up, so…."

"There's something I just don't get," Penny told him. "Ben Linus, by his own words, had been part of the Dharma Initiative. Even if he didn't know what the Swan was for, he had to have been around when whatever happened that caused it to be to built in the first place. So he had to know what might happen if the button was never pressed. Hell, based on what you just said, he had to have followed through with the protocol. So if he knew how dangerous it was, why go through the farce?"

John actually chuckled a little. "You have no idea how many times I asked myself that question, before and after your husband ended up saving my life – and maybe the world."

"You never asked the man directly?" Desmond asked with incredulity.

"We were dealing with far more pressing issues. By the time he was finally gone, it no longer seemed as important." Locke told them. "I know how horrible that sounds, considering the personal agony that both your husband and I went through every single time we pushed the button, but trust me, things got worse after you left."

Desmond considered pressing the point, but decided not to take advantage of the man. "You ever come to any personal conclusion?"

"Lying was Benjamin's superpower, as Hurley would put it," Locke finally said. "He'd been spreading disinformation for so long that he saw no reason to stop doing even if would've saved lives. He'd come to the hatch to start a long con that would end with Jack on the other side of the island removing the tumor on his spine. He had no intention of breaking the ruse, even once his lie was discovered. And who knows? Maybe he really did think that the Swan, like everything else the Dharma Initiative did, was silly and meaningless. Maybe, like me, he thought the Pearl Station was real and the Swan was the lie."

"So why press the button in the first place?" Penny asked.

"Variation on an old standard," Locke said. "Lie, but verify. He waited until the absolute last possible minute – just long enough to plant the seed of doubt – then he pressed the button, and said he never had. Ben was never one to let the truth get in the way of his head games. I'm sure that's the best way he had to play it."

Desmond and Penny, having never met the man (and were personally grateful for it), were more than inclined to take John's word for it. "Was he ever truthful?" Desmond asked.

"That's the thing about Ben," John finally said. "He was so good at lying that you could never tell when he stopped. That's something, as you and everyone else will learn, is something that just about everybody else in a position of authority was inclined to do. If they lie, they would dissemble and put you off. Keep saying you had to wait. Maybe that was just part of the biggest lie of all."

"Which was?"

"No one knew the whole truth about the island," Locke said simply. "They just said they did, and you believed them."

**LLLLLL**

Late the next morning, after everybody had a late breakfast, the group met again at the Reyes' household, all of them wondering just how much Locke was going to tell them about what happened next.

They were a little surprised, however, when Locke began the meeting by saying that he had a question he wanted answered, and very surprised who he decided to ask.

"Walt, the day before the raft left, you and I were having a conversation," he said slowly. "Then I grabbed your hand. There was this long pause, and you told me not to open the hatch." Walt nodded. "I never asked you what you saw, but considering you left the island in such a hurry, I'm guessing whatever it was scared the hell out of you."

"It was more than that, Mr. Locke," Walt said slowly. "Usually, when I saw things, it was something like a picture in my head. You saw what that was like when I threw the knife into the tree. Most of the time, it involved something I wanted _to _make happen." He hesitated. "This was nothing like that."

"What was it like, Walt?" Michael asked.

Walt didn't answer his father directly. "How long between the time you grabbed me and the time I warned you was there?"

Locke thought. "Five, ten seconds max."

"It didn't feel like that to me." He looked at Desmond. "That story you told about what happened between the time you turned the failsafe key and you woke up in the woods, that's about as close to what it was as I can't put it."

Desmond had told this story to Hurley, and had never shared it with anyone outside the group. "Did you leave the island?"

Walt shook his head, then frowned. "Sort of. I remember every detail even now, but I have to tell you, it's going to make even less sense that what any of you ever saw in your dreams and visions."

"Almost nothing 0n that rock made a lick of sense," James said adamantly. "At this point, it would be almost impossible to surprise us."

"You may think otherwise when I'm finished," Walt told them. "But here we go."

He took a deep breath. "There was this huge flash. And I was in the jungle. No one could see me, but I could see and hear everything. There were a bunch of men gathered around this construction project, and these two guys were arguing. One of them was this Asian man about Dad's age, and he was wearing this lab coat. He was yelling at this guy named Stuart, telling them that the drill had melted, and that digging any further was too dangerous. The other guy – he was balding and he had a beard – kept ordering them to start up and pour water on it."

All of the survivors were looking puzzled, but Desmond in particular was wary. It sounded like Walt was describing Dr. Marvin Candle.

"They yelled at each other for awhile, mostly talking about I guess scientific stuff. Then Stuart said something very clearly: 'If Edison had been afraid of the consequences, we'd all still be sitting in the dark!' Then there was some noise and another flash."

Jack was trying to make sense of this. What this sounded like was that Walt had a vision of the Dharma Initiative constructing the Swan. Even given everything he'd been willing to accept, this was pretty hard to fathom.

"Go on, son," Michael said slowly.

"Okay, dad, but this is where things start getting weird," Walt said.

"_Start _getting weird?" Hurley blurted out. Claire slapped his arm.

Walt continued. "We were at this site a bit later, and then Jack came out."

There was a long moment where everybody more or less collectively said: "What?"

"That's not even the weirdest part. Jack was wearing a jump suit, same as everyone else. He had a gun in one hand, and he was carrying something that looked like an engine." Walt paused to let everybody take this in, "There were a lot more guys in jumpsuits around, and all of them had guns too. They starting shooting at Jack, and then this van, I guess drove up, and…" Walt shook his head. "Kate and Sawyer got out. They were wearing same kind of jumpsuits, and they started shooting. There was also this blonde woman with you guys. I didn't recognize her, because I didn't meet Juliet until a few weeks later."

The collective expression on everybody's face, particularly the four people Walt had just mentioned, all could be expressed by three letters: WTF?

"Finally, Sawyer got a gun on Stuart, and told Jack to 'do it'. I didn't know what it was. You said stop the drill, but the Asian guy couldn't, and Stuart shouted: 'We hit the pocket!'. You dropped that thing down the crevice." Walt paused.

James couldn't help himself. "And?!"

"I don't know if what you wanted to happened or not, but something went wrong." Walt said slowly. "All of the machinery started getting pulled towards that hole. Chains, pipes, somebody got on a car, and tried to start it, and the car even though it was on, was being pulled towards the hole." He looked at Juliet. "A chain grabbed your knee, and you got dragged to that hole. Just before you were about to fall in, Sawyer grabbed your arm, and shouted: 'I got you.' He kept saying that over and over, but he couldn't hold you. You fell into the pit. And Sawyer gave this horrible scream. About a minute later, everything just went white."

Walt looked back at Locke. "None of what I saw made any sense, then or now. But I just had this overwhelming certainty that I never had before. That the hatch, whatever it was, had caused it. If any of you have any idea what it meant, I really would like to know."

"You and me both, brother," Hurley said slowly.

That was the first reaction for nearly a minute, as everyone tried to unpack what the hell Walt had just seen. "Jack, you're the voice of reason here," Sayid finally said. "If you can come up with any explanation, I would love to hear one."

Jack thought for a long time. Then he looked at John. "What Walt just described, is that what happened when you smashed the computer in the Swan and the timer ran down?"

"Pretty much," Locke admitted.

"You were the one who seemed to be the most in communion with the island," Jack asked. "You ever have a vision like that?"

This time, Locke shook his head. "What I saw, they were more like hallucinations –messages of some kind. But they seemed to be telling me a path forward. Nothing like what Walt saw."

"All right," Jack said slowly. "Walt seemed to have a vision of the Dharma Initiative building the Swan Station in the first place. One of them definitely sounded like the guy we saw in those orientation films. But if you're looking to me to come up with a reasonable explanation as to why some of us somehow managed to end up in – what, the 1970s, 80s, - then I gotta tell you, you're talking to the wrong man, because I have no frigging clue."

"Normally, I'd say something snide about this being a miracle – the Doc finally admitted he ain't got all the answers," James said slowly. "But if you'll pardon my language, that whole vision thing scares the living shit out of me."

"I think we're all overreacting just a little," Sayid was clearly trying to be the voice of reason, even though this had clearly unsettled him to. "If we were still on the island, it would be cause for concern, I admit. But John's made it clear there's no way any of us can return. And even if we could, the possibility that we would somehow end up on the island at the time the Dharma Initiative was there is utterly ludicrous. So let's try and figure out how Walt could've seen what he did in a rational way."

"I thought you knew by now the word 'rational' doesn't belong in the same sentence as that island," Juliet, who quite understandably had the most reason to be terrified by Walt's vision, finally spoke up.

"Rational as far of the logic of that island goes," Sayid admitted. "Desmond, is there any possible that electromagnetism at the Swan could've done something like that you? "

"I know something happened to me," Desmond admitted. "It's possible that some part of my consciousness travel back in time to 1995. But I wasn't just an observer. I participated in everything that happened. Up to a point, anyway. The travel was in my _own _past, not the islands."

"Well, Walt always did have a special connection to the island," Locke said slowly. "It's possible the island was letting him see something from its past that the rest of us wouldn't have been able to process."

"That doesn't explain how _we _ended up there," James said slowly. "And I seriously doubt we could've ended up there long enough to become members of Dharma."

"Based on what Walt said, it didn't exactly seem that we had joined willingly," Jack said slowly. "Not that it looks like it made much of a difference. "

"There was a lot of weird shit on that island, but I really doubt there was a time machine," James looked at Locke. "Was there?"

Locke looked at them. "The main reason I asked Walt what he saw was because one of the questions I never got answered to my satisfaction by anyone is just what the Dharma Initiative was doing on the island in the first place," he told them. "Even after all my time on the island, my biggest questions are still about them. How they found the island, why they came there, and what exactly they did that Richard and the rest of his people thought they did to cause the Purge in the first place."

"Perhaps we would have some of those answers if you hadn't decided to blow the Flame up," Sayid said with a trace of his old brusqueness.

"And that _was _my fault," Locke said simply. "I could come up with a half-assed excuse that I thought it was in 'the best interests of the island', but you wouldn't buy into it if I did, and that's not even a real reason."

Sayid was actually a little surprised to hear Locke admit his mistake. "Then why did you do it, John?"

"I wanted to hurt the Others," Locke said. "Mikhail clearly knew we were coming the minute we saw him in the Pearl. And they were clearly preparing for some kind of invasion by us from the minute we showed up. They proved as much when that woman was hiding more or less ordered Mikhail to kill her. The Others weren't interested in playing nice. This was the only way I could see to hurt them."

Sayid considered this. "I agree with that approach in principle," he said simply, "and I might even have been willing to go along with it had you allowed Kate and myself to raid the Flame more thoroughly. But that's not the approach you chose to take."

"I wasn't very good at communication back then," Locke said simply. "That's not exactly a sin that was solely mine."

"He has a point," Jack admitted. "I may have been good at making speeches and sounding like a leader, but I sure as hell withheld a lot of information. We were all guilty of that back then, even if it was just about our pasts."

None of them could exactly argue with that point.

"For example, if we'd been more willing to share information, we'd have known by the time the Swan blew that the Dharma people were lying to us as well." Locke said slowly.

Hurley looked blank. "Um, they were dead for fifteen years before we arrived."

"I think I know what John's getting at," Kate said slowly. "There were more than six stations on the island, weren't there?"

Slowly, the dots began to be connected for the survivors. "Okay, before I ask my fiancé to spoil the movie for us, let's see if we can do the math ourselves," James said slowly.

Jack nodded. "We all knew about the Swan," Jack said.

Jin spoke up. "When we met up with the tail section survivors, they took us to a bunker that looked a lot like it was Dharma," he said slowly.

"My head was starting to get swimmy when we got there, but did either of you see some kind of 'Made by Dharma' logo?" James asked Jin or Michael.

"Saw something that looked like an arrow." Michael said slowly.

"Then there was the Pearl Station and the Flame," Sayid said slowly. "And the three of you were kept prisoner in an aquatic station called the Hydra. That gets us to five."

Claire, who'd had the least contact of any of them with the Dharma station, spoke up. "I was kept at one of those stations when Ethan took me. Kate and I went back there with Rousseau once. There was some kind of medical icon on it."

"'The Staff," Sun said slowly, remembering when Juliet had taken her there to find out that her baby was Jin's.

Sayid was holding his hand out. "And if we count the Looking Glass, that gets us to seven right there." He looked at Juliet. "How many of those did you know about?"

"Honestly, less than you'd think," Juliet admitted. "The only time I ever observed the Swan was about three weeks before I officially met the rest of you. As for a station called the Arrow, he never mentioned that one at all."

"What about the station that Richard was mentioning?" Sayid asked.

Juliet actually looked a little sad at that. "It was called The Tempest. It was basically a chemical station. Which was a euphemism for a biological warfare station." She looked away for a moment. "Goodwin worked there."

James grasped Juliet's hand. He knew better than the other survivors just how painful her memories of Goodwin had been, as yet another symbol of Ben's obsession with her. "It's not like they told her every last details of the Others operation," he gently reminded them. "As far as every one of Ben's people knew, the Looking Glass station was flooded, remember?

They all nodded at that. "But you still haven't answer my original questioned, Johnny-on-the-Spot?" James said slowly. "Did the Dharma folk design a time machine?"

Locke took a deep breath. "I never saw it except from the outside, but they might have."

Another minor explosion. Jack again took command, albeit more gently than normal. "How far ahead in your story does this come?"

"Quite a bit, but considering that I wasn't sure how relevant it would be, I don't mind going off on a tangent, at least for a little while." Locke said. "Around four months after you left the island – three months after I'd secured my leadership – I was getting impatient with the amount of direct answers I was getting from people. So I decided to see if I could find some information in Hydra Island, where Ben had run things for awhile. No one objected to it, but no one was willing to go with me, either."

"Yeah," Jack said slowly. "Isabel – 'the sheriff' as they said – said that they didn't much like being on this island. They ever tell you why?"

"_That_ they were more than willing to tell me about," Locke admitted. "When the Purge took place, the Others basically poisoned everybody who was living in the Barracks. But that didn't those members of Dharma who were at the stations. There were a couple dozen people on Hydra Island at the time, and once they learned that the Hostiles had attacked their people, they scattered into the jungles with whatever arms they could find, and engaged in a kind of guerilla warfare."

"Much like in Vietnam," Sayid said slowly.

"Not a bad metaphor, considering this was a jungle war," Locke said. "The Others won, of course, but Dharma made them pay for every life. A lot of them still remember how bloody it was, and they weren't happy when Ben decided to stage his charade on that island. They had a long memory."

"But they didn't mind when you went back there," Hurley said.

"Every new leader apparently got a bit of leeway." Locke looked at James. "And no, they never did tell me why they were building a runway."

"Hell, maybe they really were watching the skies," James said. "What did you find?"

"Ben's office didn't have as much detail as his house," Locke said, "but there was quite a bit of strange stuff there. I found five foreign passports, all under the name Dean Moriarty, some bank books, mostly for places in East Africa – Cairo, Tunisia, Algiers – and a lot of foreign currency. If there was a rule about not being able to leave the island, Ben sure as hell didn't seem to be following it."

"How the hell was he leaving?" James asked.

"I'm not sure. As soon as he lost his power, Ben was basically persona non grata with the rest of his people, even though I didn't have him formally exiled for another six months." Locke held up his hand. "I'll get to it. Then I found this secret compartment, and possibly the richest treasure trove I ever found, at least on the Dharma Initiative. There were a series of Dharma Orientation VHS tapes, and I mean old ones. I think they might have been designed when the first VCRs came out."

Sayid was genuinely amazed. "Did Ben's office have a VCR?"

"No, but there was one in his home. Don't ask me what a TV was doing there. I really doubt the Dharma Initiative ever kicked back and watched _St. Elsewhere." _Locke said slowly. "But I knew that there was valuable stuff, so I stuck it in my backpack. After I finished salvaging his office, I rowed back to the Barracks. I felt a bit hypocritical, since I'd pretty much called Ben a Pharisee for being a domestic when I'd first challenged his leadership, but I didn't have much of a choice. I knew the Others didn't have any in their tents."

"And what did you learn from it?" Kate asked.

"There were five tapes in the stash. One thing became clear very quickly. The Dharma folk wasn't even willing to tell the truth among themselves."

"What does that mean?"

"The man who was in all the films, he kept changing his name," Locke said. "I should've picked up on it when I saw the Pearl video for the first time, but understandably, my world had just been upended."

Everyone knew that finding that station had been the real reason Locke had stopped pushing the button.

"There was a video for people arriving on the island. It had to have been some transition from a film, the picture was even sloppier than on the Swan film." Locke said. "Most of it was more cheerful than the usual films, minus the warning about the fences that were there to protect Dharma from 'the unusual abundant wildlife." He looked at Juliet, who nodded. "He identified himself as Marvin Candle, which is what he said in the video they had for the Swan. There was also another copy of the Pearl video, where he identified himself as 'Dr. Mark Wickmund.'"

"But you knew that video was a fake," Desmond reminded him.

"I watched it for a couple of minutes away. There was a video for the Arrow, and he identified himself as Candle again. Apparently, when Dharma was in full operation, the Arrow was supposed to see to serve as a reconnaissance station to spy on 'The Hostiles'." He looked at them. "I can guess why they'd want that one torn apart."

"What was the last one?" Sayid asked.

"The last one was the only station I hadn't heard of, even from the rest of the Others. It was called the Orchid," Locke told them. "I put in the tape. There was our friend in the labcoat, and this time, he identified himself as 'Dr. Edgar Halliwax'. They said this was the sixth Dharma station – hell, maybe it even was by the time the tape was made – and that the Orchid was not, as you can tell, a greenhouse station. They had built the overhead structure to conceal its true purpose from the Hostiles, which was to try and manipulate the electromagnetic potential of the island, which he said produced a kind of 'Casimir Effect'. I didn't know what that meant, but it became clear what the implications might be very soon after."

"You mean the video actually showed what the station was supposed to do?" Jack said in mild disbelief.

"They certainly made an effort. He went something he called 'The Vault', and while he wouldn't tell exactly what it was for, he said it was critical that no inorganic material ever be placed in it." Locke held up his hand. "No, I don't know why, but I can guess. Then he took this white rabbit out – it had the number 15 on it, but otherwise it looked completely normal – and he said it was going to be sent forward 100 microseconds in time. He placed the rabbit in the vault, then he said: "It will look like the rabbit is about to disappear, but in reality…"

Locke trailed off. "You know, all the Dharma films were clearly badly edited, and maybe what happened this time was the exact same thing, but it sure as hell didn't seem like it." Locke said slowly.

"What happened, John?" Kate asked.

"Immediately afterward, the tape started running like it was on fastforward. For a moment, I thought it had something to do with the VCR, but no matter how many times I tried to rewatch it, the same thing happened every time." He looked at Jack. "I suppose you would've written it up as a technical glitch or a malfunctioning machine. But what it looked like to me was that this rabbit disappeared and reappeared in the vault over and over."

"So you're saying this rabbit was traveling in time?" Sayid, understandably, was having a hard time wrapping his head around it.

"I know what it sounds like. And I never had any concrete proof that Orchid existed in any form other than in that film." He looked around, finally settling on James. "You asked if they had a time machine on the island. They might very well have."

"What number was on that rabbit again?" Hurley still seemed focused on that.

"I think it was numbered to prove it was the same test subject, Hugo," Locke said. "And yes, I know the significance of that number. It had a lot more significance than any of us, even you, could've known."

Hurley suddenly seemed to shrug off the focus on his numbers. "What did they mean?"

"Easy there, Hoss," James said slowly. "We already had Locke go off one hell of a side quest. We ever want him to get this story finished, he needs to go back to where he was before. "

"He's right," Jack said calmly. "We may need to know this stuff about Dharma a little later, but right now, you get to back to what was happening with the mission to…" He thought for a moment. "You were going to the Tempest, weren't you?"

"I didn't know about that station either," Locke said slowly. "Juliet was right. It was a station for biological warfare. And the reason we had to take Ben with us was for a very good reason. He was one of the few people who'd been around the last time it had been activated."

Juliet understood very well. "That's how the Purge happened in the first place."

Locke nodded. "Ben led them there."


	9. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

**December 22, 2004**

"Where exactly is The Tempest?" Locke said as they prepared to set out.

"It's about half a day's walk due southeast," Richard said in his unflappable manner.

"Well, if you know that much I don't see why I need to come along," Ben was starting to sound a little childish.

"You're the one who insisted on keeping it active all this time," Richard spoke like he was talking to a child. "And considering that you were lying about the Looking Glass being flooded, I think we have to at least consider the possibility that you've made some significant changes in the interim."

Ben seemed a little hurt, but didn't say anything. Normally, Locke would've enjoyed watching Ben get chewed out, but this was not the time or place.

"How long until they make landfall?" Locke asked.

"Tonight at the latest," Richard said grimly.

Locke turned to the three Others who had agreed to come on this mission. The two men were heavily armed. The woman – who seemed to be a few years younger than Ben and had been looking daggers at Ben since she had volunteered – just had a Sig Sauer, and seemed to be itching to pull the trigger. John had a feeling she was itching to shoot somebody 'trying to run'.

"We have a lot of distance to travel," Locke said quietly. "We go fast and carefully. If we encounter any of Widmore's soldiers, don't hesitate to shoot."

"And if we run into any of your friends?" the woman said snidely.

"They're not our problem any more," Locke said, hoping he meant it. "Right now, we have bigger problems then people leaving the island."

Justin spoke up. "But no one ever leaves the island. " He spoke as if he were starting as rudimentary a fact as 'The sun is hot'. And just a few days, Locke might have agreed with that statement.

"We can't worry about that now," he said firmly. "Our priority has to be to get to the Tempest. No distractions. Understood?"

Locke knew he was ostensibly in charge, but he didn't much care for the fact that everybody was looking at Richard first before nodding approval. Just who really was in charge? Where did he get his authority? Locke knew the answer – in theory – to the latter question, but he still wasn't convinced that Jacob was even real, despite everything he'd been told. He still thought he might just be some kind of myth.

_Jack really is starting to rub off on me _he thought. _He'd be laughing at me all the way back to the rescue boat._

"All right," he said, "Let's go. Richard, you're on point. Harper, if Ben does anything funny, shoot off one of his toes." The moment he said that, he regretted it – given the way she was looking at him, Harper seemed like she would have a _very _broad definition of funny. Assuming she had a sense of humor at all.

**LLLLLL**

Juliet had started to look uncomfortable the minute John had mentioned Harper's name. Locke clearly noticed. So did James. "I take it you knew who she was," Locke said slowly.

"Harper was the therapist on the island," Juliet said quietly.

This came as a bit of a shock to everybody, but naturally Hurley reacted first. "You guys could afford to fly in a shrink?"

Juliet gave a small smile. "It was stressful being an Other. And to be honest, she never liked me. Even before she had a good reason to."

There was a long silence. James squeezed Juliet's hand. "You don't have to tell them," he said.

Juliet took a deep breath. "Harper's last name was Stanhope. She was Goodwin's wife."

Everybody got it now. Perhaps not surprisingly, Sun offered words of comfort. "Did she know about the affair?"

Juliet nodded. "Even told me about it six months in," Juliet shook her head. "She warned me to end it. Not because she cared about me hurting her, but because she was terrified of what would happen when Ben found out. And he did. That's why he sent Goodwin out to the tail section. That's why he kept him there even after Ethan was murdered. He knew something like that would happen. A few days after it happened, he took me out to see his body." Juliet started to mist up. "The bastard wouldn't even take his body home to his wife."

Locke shook his head. "That just sounds so typical of the man. He gave up caring about innocent bystanders long before we ever came to the island."

Juliet looked at him. "Did she do anything to him?"

Locke shook his head. "She followed orders. But that didn't mean I didn't notice that she was pissed."

**WHOOOSH**

"So why did they build this station in the first place?" Locke asked after they had gone nearly a mile.

"Why did the Dharma Initiative do anything they did?" Ben said rhetorically. "Silly experiments. They thought science could explain everything. Even the island."

"If you hated them that much, why did you occupy everything they ran?" Locke asked.

"Because he thought knew better than them," Harper hadn't said two words to anybody since they had left the Temple. Now she was looking at Ben with that hostile glare in her eye.

"That's not the reason, Harper," Ben said quietly.

"Oh, that's right. Jacob told you to. Except he didn't. Not really. That was just another in a long line of the lies you've told since you took over." Harper shook her head. "It's a shame Isabel isn't still alive. She probably wouldn't have been as patient as the rest of us. She'd have had you drawn and quartered in front of all of us."

"We don't have time to deal with this now," Richard said quietly.

"And when _will _we have time to deal with this, Richard?" Harper seemed to have even less patience for Richard then she had for Ben, if that were possible. "You know, if I thought it would do any damage, I'd put a bullet between your eyes right now. "

That was another in a long line of statements about Richard that John was going to have to file away. At this point, he was more than willing to consider that Richard might be ageless – the man's own statements would seem to suggest he was – but was he somehow indestructible as well?

"I'd consider what I said next, Harper," Richard's voice now carried a bit of warning to it.

"Really? I'm not wild about the excuse that we were 'just following orders', but since that seems to be what we mere mortals have to do, it's all we can say. But you met with Jacob. You're his adviser. You knew Ben was full of shit, and you just led us on for _years." _Harper was losing even the pretense of being reasonable. "You let me this tin-pot dictator. Making decisions that got us killed. People like my husband."

"I didn't have your husband killed, Juliet," Ben said quietly. "As I recall, he did that to himself."

Locke knew what was going to happen, and ran backwards into Harper. The shot she was firing went into the air. "I think I made it very clear that we weren't going to let anything happen to him until we got to our destination," he said with a coldness he didn't feel. "If you don't think you can keep your emotions in check, you can march back the way we came right now. You may not have liked the way Ben did things, but he's not in charge now. I am."

For a long few seconds, it looked like Harper might challenge Locke's already fragile leadership. Then finally she nodded, and put her gun back in her waistband.

"And I didn't bring you here to do more of your mind games," Locke said to Ben. "You're here to provide us with information and help us at the Tempest. Otherwise, stop trying to get yourself killed."

Ben didn't look particularly abashed at what he'd just tried t0 do. "I was just testing a theory," he said slowly.

"What theory?" Locke demanded.

"You'll find out soon enough."

They literally didn't have time for Ben and his bullshit. He just nodded at Richard, who hadn't seemed particularly disturbed one way or the other at what had nearly happened to man that had supposedly been his superior for at least fifteen years. What did he know that John didn't? _Probably quite a lot._

They started walking again. "All right, Richard, maybe you can tell me," Locke said slowly. "Why is The Tempest so dangerous?"

"It controls biological weapons," Richard said slowly. "Mostly nerve agents."

"And how exactly do you know about it in the first place?"

"It's how we managed the Purge."

Not for the first time, Locke was having a hard time at just how matter-of-factly the Others seemed willing to give out groundbreaking information. This time, however, he was begin to wonder how indifferent they were to some truly horrific events. They clearly had no problem discussed how they had essentially orchestrated a genocide, however minor.

"Did the island want them dead?" Locke asked as neutrally as he could manage.

"That was entirely their fault," Richard said. "After months of fighting, we agreed to a truce. We had very specific terms for which they could remain on the island. They were only supposed to stay for fifteen years. They promised they wouldn't build over any land outside their territory. And they excavated and experimented where they weren't supposed to."

"What are you talking about?"

"Didn't you ever wonder how the Swan got built, John?" Ben said quietly. "What exactly caused that 'incident' which lead to the button being put there in the first place? Where they basically had to bury the island in concrete to cover up what they had done?"

"You saw the Swan get built," Locke said.

Ben didn't answer. "They opened doors that they had no business opening," was all he was say. "As a result the consequences were disastrous. Honestly, I don't know why Jacob didn't have them removed right then."

There were a lot of questions Locke wanted to ask Ben right then. But he had a feeling he wouldn't get an answer, so he just said: "You really are a hell of an actor," and turned his attention back to Richard.

"We had no proof. But when the time came for them to leave the island, it was obvious they were not going to obey the terms we had agreed to." Richard said. "The island didn't kill Dharma, John. They killed themselves."

Again, they were so matter of fact about the slaughter that they had committed. Even if the people of Dharma were guilty of everything that they said, Locke found it impossible to believe that there weren't women and children, innocents who didn't deserve to be killed.

_Ben Linus was one of those children _he reminded himself. _Maybe they were all as irredeemable as him. _Then he thought of how the Others seemed more than willing to treat children now, and shuddered.

"You may not like the decisions I've made, John," Ben said quietly. "You think I'm a monster and a liar. But you're the leader now. The buck stops with you. Unless you're ready to walk in my shoes, don't think you can judge us."

Locke didn't respond to this. But Harper didn't overhear this, and sent Ben an even more angry look than the ones she'd sent before. It was clear that the rank-and-file clearly _did _judge him, and not favorably.

A thought crossed through John's head. That he'd seen that look before. So many of the survivors had the same look at him during the two months he'd been one of them. Maybe he was closer to being Ben than he was prepared to admit.

**LLLLL**

"Dude, you were never as bad as him," Hurley interrupted.

Locke raised an eyebrow. "Ben's a pretty low bar to be judged by," he reminded them. "And none of you looked particularly glad to see me when I showed up at the Radio Tower."

"You'd just thrown a knife in a woman's back," Kate reminded him. "A woman who everyone was counting on to get us rescued. Even given what we learned about her, that's not exactly something that would get a round of applause."

"And given everything you'd done when we were trying to find Jack," Sayid pointed out. "We might have been willing to support you, if you explained yourself. But you didn't do much of that, either."

"I don't exactly have a defense for that," Locke admitted. "Even now, the best argument I can make is that we were all doing it. We didn't share information, and we kept fighting over leadership. Even after Jack took over, we all kept challenging him, and we all kept our own council. But that's still not a defense. It's an excuse."

"And not a very good one, considering I was the biggest offender," Jack admitted. "I've often wondered if I'd let someone else, like Sayid or Hurley – or you- take over, maybe fewer people would've died. That kept me up nights more than anything else."

"You got them off the island," Locke told him. "You kept your promise. That's more than I was able to do a lot of the time. And I have to tell you, hearing your voice in the back of my head helped me a lot in the weeks and months that were to come."

"You Scully-ed him," Hurley said to himself.

Locke actually smiled broadly. "I always liked that show. Though I have to say wandering through that jungle, I think even Mulder would've had a panic attack dealing with some of what we saw. And what came next.

**WHOOOSH**

In a way, the Tempest was far more impressive every other Dharma station that Locke had encountered so far. There was a structure about fifty yards out, and it was more impressive then the ones that he had already dealt with. There was a lot of electrical wiring, and a security camera outside.

Harper looked at it. "So this is where you had Goodwin working all this time," she said quietly. "And I believe you went into great detail to assure this was an electrical station."

"That's the excuse they used all the years it was operating," Ben said quietly.

"Did the Dharma Initiative ever tell the truth about any of their stations?" Locke asked casually.

"Excuse me?" Ben said

"The Swan was never meant to monitor electromagnetism; it was to release it," Locke said calmly. "The Pearl wasn't observation of a psychological experiment; it was to spy on everyone else in Dharma. Or did you think I was just going to ignore that pile of pneumatic tubes we passed two miles ago?"" When he got no answer from anybody, he went on: "Hydra Station was clearly used for more than just a zoo. You had to beat a supercomputer at chess just to get the Flame station to work properly. Why wasn't Dharma straight with the people working for it? Or is there just something about the island that makes everybody lie?"

_That _got Richard's attention. "John, we're not the ones who've been lying about –"

"You went around wearing dirty clothes and stage makeup when you clearly clean up nicely," Locke said slowly. "Mikhail didn't give a straight answer about how the Flame worked or that the sonic fence was still in operation. Ethan pretended to be one of us so he could kidnap Claire. You did the same thing with the people in the tail section, only this time you just took them all. And of course, there's Ben who could get a heavyweight championship in the art of lying. Not one person I've met on this island since I came here has been on the level with us since we got here. So if you say you're going to tell me the truth about anything, why the hell should I believe you?"

"One could say it's had the same effect on you, John," Ben spoke up. "Or was the first thing you did was tell everybody how miraculous it was that you were walking around the island?"

This was, in fact, a very valid point, one that John had no intention of conceding to the Pinocchio of this island. "You didn't just lie to us, Ben. You lied to your own people. Or is Harper here lying?" He didn't give Harper any time to react to this. "And for that matter, why didn't you just welcome us on to the island in the first place? If we're supposed to be here, why did you treat us like we were invaders?"

For once, Ben didn't have an immediate answer available. "This island isn't exactly on any major flight path, John," he said slowly. "There was no way to know you weren't a threat until we checked."

"If we were so dangerous, why wouldn't you let us leave?" Locke countered. "You can't have it both ways."

This time, Ben did have an answer. "It may be hard to get to this island, John," he said slowly. "But it can be even more difficult to leave. You honestly think if your friends had kept sailing that pathetic raft they would have managed to find safe waters? We had to_ give_ Michae_l _coordinates so he could get off the island."

"How do I know you were even will to do that for him?" Locke asked. "All we have is your word. Which is pretty much worth the paper it's printed on."

"John, I made it very clear, we don't have time to go with this," Richard tried again.

"I just went on a long walk through the jungle, over hill and dale." John said, louder this time. "I've just established that you people lie with incredible regularity. How do I know that when we open the door to this station, there won't be more of the Others here to shoot me, and hand control of the island back to Ben or whoever else you think is now worthy of running the place?"

Locke didn't expect an answer. So he was surprised when he got one. "Could you give us a moment?" he said to Justin, Harper and Eric. "There's something I need to say in private."

The two men nodded and walked away. Harper gave him a nasty side-eye but finally left. Ben was about to go to, but Richard held up a hand. "You should hear this too, Ben."

Ben tried not to show this, but he was clearly surprised.

"Jacob has made it very clear that whoever comes to this island is part of a larger plan," he said quietly. "I've spent a long time on this island – longer than you can possibly imagine, John – waiting for him to tell me what exactly this plan is. And he just says that there's a larger purpose, and I'm a part of it."

Ben was clearly struck dumb by this admission. "He hasn't told you even after all this time?" It took a moment for John to recognize what was in Ben's tone. It was something he'd never heard before.

Compassion.

Richard shook his head. "This island is important. Maybe the most important place in the world. And I'm not going to lie to you anymore – for a long time, I thought it was hell. But it's important, and it needs to be protected. Widmore has never understood that, and if his prevail here, the wrong side wins, and this place will become the hell that so many of your own people think it was, John. That much I am certain of."

This was perhaps the most honest Richard – hell, anyone he had encountered on this island – had ever been about it. And it was enough to once again momentarily quell his thirst for answers. "All right then," he finally said. "Let's get this done."

The utter honesty momentarily shocked Ben as well. He walked over to the door and punched in the code. "You'd better have the rest of your people stand guard," he said slowly. "Widmore's people won't hesitate. We have to be in and out before they get here."

It took a moment for Locke to realize that Ben had been talking to him, and that he called them 'your people', not 'mine'. At least for now, Ben seemed to have surrendered.

That didn't make him a fool. "After you, then."

Ben didn't put up a fuss, only nodded.

As they entered the facility, Locke noted in passing yet another one of those logos This time it was in color; a wave painted blue.

"All right, Richard," Ben said quietly. "Now that we've made it here, what do I have to do?"

Richard gestured towards the computer that was here – the same model that John was beginning to think of as 'Dharma Vintage'. "I take it you showed Goodwin how to work here?" he said quietly.

"I did."

"We need to render the chemicals in this place inert."

Ben looked at Richard a little perturbed. "You do know that it's permanent?" he said a bit petulantly. "If any new threats come to the island, this line of defense is as useless as the Looking Glass or the Flame."

"Neither has done us any good in awhile," Richard said, his natural calm restored. "Besides, maybe it's time we finally put away childish things."

This seemed to be more of a dig at Ben than anything else. This time, however, Ben didn't even put up a real reaction. He just walked over to the computer.

"John, there are some Haz-Mat suits in that locker over there," he said quietly. "I'd be grateful if you got a couple out for us, just in case something goes wrong."

Locke nodded, and walked over to the locker that Ben had indicated. "There are only two suits here."

"Richard doesn't need one," Ben said casually. "Unless things have changed that dramatically in the last week."

Another hint that Richard didn't just not age, he might very well be immortal. For the first time he wonder, did Richard consider that a blessing or a curse? And was that something he might have to consider some day? Then again, Ben seemed to have aged normally.

"John? Time is of the essence." Ben said, gently for him.

Locke took out one of the suits and handed it to Ben. There was silence for five minutes as the two of them put them on.

"You sure you want to be here, Richard?" Ben said almost idly, as he was about to put on the mask. "This might not be pretty for any of us."

"Someone needs to be here in case things go wrong," Richard said calmly.

Ben didn't argue, and began to type on the computer.

The instant he got started, John got a very clear sensation that might very well be going sideways quickly. A siren started blaring, and a mechanized voice not entirely dissimilar to the one that had been saying 'SYSTEM FAILURE' right about the time the Swan had started to exploded began to make a dire announcement.

"IMPROPER ACCESS. IMPROPER ACCESS. IMPROPER ACCESS."

This didn't strike John as the most promising start, and he really wished he could read Ben's facial expressions right now. His body language didn't show much sign he was disturbed, but then again, Ben rarely showed emotion unless it benefited him.

IMPROPER ACCESS continued to blare for a couple of minutes, until it was joined by an even less encouraging phrase. "FIVE MINUTES UNTIL CHEMICAL RELEASE."

"Ben," he managed to say through the distortion of the mask.

"John, it may not appear this way, but I need as few distractions as possible." The distortion didn't disguise the irritation in Ben's voice – a sound John was all too familiar with.

John managed to remain silent until the voice began blaring FOUR MINUTES. "Should I be concerned about the countdown?" he said as calmly as he could manage.

"I thought you might be nostalgic for them," The sarcasm was back – never a good sign.

"Dare I ask if you even know what you're doing?" Locke demanded.

"Oh, I know what I'm doing. I'm just not sure the computer is willing to acknowledge it," Ben's fingers never stopped tapping even as the voice dropped from four to three and then to two.

"Just what will happen if the timer counts all the way down?" John directed his questions to Richard this time.

"Well, we'll be safe here," Richard's calm was starting to become infuriating. "The people outside will be dead within a minute. As for the rest of our people, there are chemical masks at the temple."

"And everyone else?" Locke said slowly.

"It'll depend where they are and which way the wind blows," Richard said. "In the end, it won't matter much. If Ben doesn't stop the gas, anyone whose outside will be dead pretty much instantly."

For the first time, John hoped Jack and his friends really had been rescued. Then he remembered there were several people with them who had no way of knowing what be coming – and one of them was Ben's daughter. Now he knew that the man had every reason to make sure that he succeeded.

In the end, it came as something of an anticlimax – just as the timer reached forty-six seconds, the siren stopped blaring and the voice said: CHEMICALS NEUTRALIZED.

Ben's shoulders sagged as he stepped away from the computer. He removed his mask, and took a deep breath. "Well, it's done. "

Locke then very slowly took the Hazmat suit off. "What happens after the mercenaries get here and find the stations been disabled?" he asked Richard.

"They'll be very angry," Richard said. "And then, they'll follow their next protocol that Widmore gave them. To go to the Barracks, where as far as Widmore knows we were last living, and find Ben."

"Is that the real reason your people abandoned them two weeks ago?" Locke told Ben.

This time, Ben didn't turn away. "I sent Tom off island before we left," he told John. "Mikhail had told me just before our satellites went dead that Widmore was making some kind of move towards locating the island. Tom's job was to do reconnaissance and get someone on the freighter that could assist us."

"You have people in civilization who know about the island," Locke said calmly. "I thought no one was allowed to leave."

"There are people who know about the island who aren't on it," Richard said. "Some of them are on our side."

Locke was beginning to realize that this was becoming even harder to fathom than he thought, and there was still so much going on that he didn't understand. He was about to demand another answer when the silence was interrupted by a series of gunshots outside.

"I think Widmore's people have arrived," Ben said quietly.

Locke reached for his gun. "How large a team was Widmore was supposed to be sending?"

"Five, seven men maybe." Richard still sounded calm, but now it was much more guarded. "I wouldn't worry so much about the number of men as about how heavily armed they are."

"What about my people?" Locke demanded.

"They're all more than willing to give their lives for the island, John," Ben said calmly.

And that was the last straw for John Locke. He'd seen a lot of people die in the last three months – a couple of them had actually been at his hands – but as much as he believed in the sanctity of the island, he still believed in the value of human life. And the way that everyone of the Others was so casually talking about killing to protect this island with no thought as if life itself was meaningless compared to the protection of it struck John as truly monstrous.

He put his gun in his holster, and started heading towards the entrance.

"John, what do you think you're doing?" Richard finally sounded a little concerned.

"I'm going outside to talk to these men," he said calmly.

"John, I think I made it very clear what those men will do if you get in their way," Richard said.

"Then I guess you'll have to find somebody else to lead your people," Locke said brusquely. "Because I've seen way too much death already."

"Everything we've done is because of what Jacob desires," Richard started.

"And if I survive this, we should probably have a very long discussion about just how Jacob does things," John said slowly. "I honestly think the island demanded enough sacrifices in the past few months. Having been here far longer, I think you would think the same, Richard."

By now, he was at the door. Richard had practically walked in front of him. "The island doesn't want you to do this," he said, practically in a panic.

Locke looked at Richard. And pushed him aside

"Don't tell me what I can't do," he said quietly, and opened the door.

Locke had a picture in his head as to what he was likely to see, and it was pretty close to accurate. One of the Others lay dead. Harper and Justin were standing with their rifles cocked out, Justin clearly bleeding from a wound in his thigh.

Standing on another side were four men in khakis not unlike the kind Locke had been wearing for that walkabout he never got on four months and a lifetime ago. Three of them were carrying what looked to be AK-47's, one of them was holding what looked to be a rocket launcher.

"It seems to me you've come a bit overloaded to come here," John said calmly.

Nobody spoke. Then one of the men – he looked to be in his mid-thirties with dark blonde hair and buck teeth – finally spoke. "Where is Benjamin Linus?"

"Do you know what this place is?" John asked as calmly as if there weren't four guns now being trained on him.

"I'm going to assume you didn't hear what happened outside, and give you one more chance to answer my question before things get worse," This man was clearly the leader, and he didn't seem interested in anything but his objective. "Where is Benjamin Linus?'

"I don't know what Charles Widmore told you about this place," Locke said calmly. "From what I know about the man, he probably set it was like any other mission, and offered you enough money so that you wouldn't ask any questions. Just take Ben Linus, kill anyone who gets in your way, and when you're done, kill anyone that's still alive. That's why you came here. To make your job easier."

"I'm giving you to the count of ten to tell me where he is," the man said in a calm that was far colder than Locke's, "and then, I'm going to have my men open fire on you."

"How much did he offer you?' Locke asked. "Five million apiece? Ten? Must've been a lot. Too bad you'll never see a dime of it."

One of the mercenaries started to look a little uneasy when he heard that. The leader's gaze never faltered. "One."

"You had a lot of trouble getting here, didn't you?" John talked a little quicker, even though his tone didn't change. "Bad weather, engine trouble."

"Two."

"It almost seemed like this island didn't want to be found, did it?"

"Three."

"You never heard back from Naomi, did you?" Locke said calmly.

"Four."

"That's because I killed her."

That got one of the men's attention. "You killed Naomi?"

"Threw a knife in her back." Locke knew that he sounded as cold as everybody else on this island did about killing people, but right now he chose to see it as an asset. It might be the only currency these men traded in. "Were they paying her as much as they're paying you?"

The leader focused. "That's just another reason for us to kill you. Five."

"How did you get here anyway? Take a helicopter? Ride a raft? Either way, it's going to be a problem getting back to your boat. Unless you know exactly how to get here and back."

"Six"

"Of course, even if by some miracle you manage to complete your mission – retrieve Ben, get off this island, get back to civilization – it's all a moot point. " Locke then decided to run his biggest possible bluff yet. "Because once you get back, Widmore will no doubt have people ready to kill you."

That suddenly managed to cause the man to pause. "How do you know any of this?" he asked.

"Why do you think Charles Widmore went to all this trouble to get Ben?" Locke asked slowly. "Did you even ask what this place called or was the fact that he just referred to it as 'an island' enough for you to drop everything and come here? Did you even ask how Widmore knew about this place in the first place? Or why he didn't bother to come here himself?'

The man in charge took the longest pause he had so far. "Who are you and what do you know?"

"My name is John Locke," he said slowly. "And the reason it was so hard for you to find this place is because it's very special. Widmore used to live here before he was exiled. He blames Ben Linus for it when somebody much more important then him demanded that he depart instead."

"Was it you?" the man asked.

"No," Locke decided to run another bluff – so far they seemed to be working. "But I can act as his proxy. Just as I assume you're acting as his."

The man looked at him for a very long moment. "My name is Martin," he said carefully. "Do you speak for the people currently holding weapons on us?"

"They'll listen to me," Locke said. "So why not on the count of three, we all lower our weapons, and have a civilized conversation? There might be a way to resolve any more violence. And I think you'd like to have at least part of your job be easier."

Martin looked at him for a long moment. There was an exchange of glances with the man on his left – he had darker skin which reminded John just a bit of Sayid.

"One. Two."

Before he could say 'three', three shots rang out. Locke looked at either side. Justin was dead, and Harper had been shot in the chest.

"You don't get to a position like mine without following orders," Martin said calmly, as if two more people hadn't just been killed. "And Charles Widmore made a big enough deposit that I'm going to listen to him. Now, I believe we were up to seven."

There was no reasoning with this man. Ben and Richard had been right, and now he didn't seem to have any more options left. "I'm sorry we couldn't reach an understanding, " he said resignedly. "I'm not going to tell you what you want to know. Neither will anyone else on this island. So you might as well get it over with."

Martin shook his head. "There's loyalty, and just stupidity. Some people just don't know the difference. " He almost sounded sorry about it. "Make it quick."

John lowered his hands, and closed his eyes. At least he would die protecting the island.

And just as he did, he heard the same whispering he'd heard just two days ago after pulling himself out of the pit. One last mystery he was never going to get to the bottom of.

The thing was, Martin and his people heard it, too. "What the fuck is that?" one of them demanded.

"Mayhew, Redfern! On point!" Martin ran over to Locke, and grabbed him by the scruff of his T-Shirt. "I got your man here. You'd better show yourself –"

Locke's eyes flew open.

Just in time to see hell break loose.

One of the soldiers slapped the back of his neck, and fell over as if he were having a seizure. Only it looked like the man had just been electrocuted.

"Omar! With me!" Martin and Omar started firing into the jungle. Mayhew took his rocket launcher, and prepare to fire, but before he could, a grenade flew through the air. _Where are the Others getting these weapons? _Locke thought before instinct took over and he jumped behind the Tempest wall seconds before it went off.

Omar continued to fire before Harper got to her feet, and fired three shots from her pistol into the back of his head.

Martin turned around, looking genuine perplexed for the first time before he started to run into the jungle, still firing, as if the deaths of his men either hadn't shaken him or didn't matter to him.

He had almost made it back to the tree-line when four shots rang out in quick succession. Martin staggered for a few moments, then collapsed after the final shot.

Locke got to his feet and walked over to Harper. "I'm sorry I couldn't protect you," he said softly.

Harper whispered to him. "Don't – trust – him," and breathed her last.

Locke waited for a moment, and then following an impulse he couldn't understand, closed her eyes.

Then he walked into the wild where a mass of Others was gathering around Richard, who was standing in the center with a gun in his hand. Until that moment, Locke hadn't even been sure he was carrying.

Locke was trying to find an explanation, when Lennon emerged from the jungle.

"How did you know where to find us?" Locke demanded.

"Someone came to the Temple gates and said we needed to come," Lennon said.

Locke wasn't that shocked to see that Rousseau had managed to find him. What did surprise him was that the person with her was someone new – a man who looked to be about his age, with a goatee, silvery hair, and a cut over his forehead.

"Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on here?" Frank Lapidus demanded.


	10. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

After everything that John had just dropped on them, it was perhaps not a huge surprise that the biggest shock came from the last thing he'd told them. Nor was it much of one as to who put into words first. "You met Frank?" Hurley said.

"Well, it wasn't a formal introduction," John told them. "My first assumption was, considering that he'd been on Widmore's boat in the first place, he was naturally untrustworthy. And I might've kept thinking that if I hadn't noticed the handcuff on his left wrist."

Understandably, Jin winced. "Trust was clearly an issue among Widmore's people," he admitted.

"I don't think it was as much him as it was the soldiers," Locke told them. "Frank had gotten shanghaied on this mission because he made the mistake of trusting Charles Widmore. I don't have to tell you why."

This was a given. The day before they had been about to leave the island on what they had thought was Penny's boat, Danielle and Alex – who had disappeared not long after they had made the original radio call – had reappeared with Frank in tow. He'd come to give them a warning – that the boat that they had called belong to Charles Widmore, not Penny, and its objective had not been a rescue mission but to find and retrieve Ben Linus. Some members of the crew had been aware of the mission, some had not – Frank had come aboard because he knew that the wreckage found in the Sunda Trench was not Oceanic 815. It had, however, come as a shock to find out _how _he knew – Frank was supposed to be the pilot. Simply oversleeping had almost certainly saved his life. But when the wreckage had been found, he could tell by virtue of the fact that the man in the cockpit had no wedding ring on was not Seth Norris.

Somehow – most likely because he called the Oceanic 800 number – Widmore had found out about it, and had put Frank on that freighter t0, in his words 'learn the truth about what happened to the plane'. He hadn't figured out until he'd seen the mercenaries doing test firings with machine guns that he might've gotten more than he signed up for.

He'd still wanted to fly the first helicopter to the coordinates that they'd been given, but Naomi Dorrit insisted on taking it out. By then strange things had started to happen, things that the captain was only willing to classify as 'cabin fever'. If it was, it had been the strangest cabin fever Frank had ever seen. The communications officer George and his colleague Brandon had gone out on a skiff after being stuck in port for two days. They rowed around for a few hours and came back, unwilling to say what had happened. Three days later, both men were dead. The doctor had never told him why.

The day before they made contact with Naomi, the backup communications officer Regina had complained of headaches, and been seen reading a book upside down. A few hours later, she wrapped herself in chains and threw herself overboard. Needless to say, Frank had been eager to get the hell off the boat and fly the soldiers anywhere they wanted to go.

But things continued to go wrong. To begin with, he was given strict instructions from the captain to stay on a heading of 305 degrees until he saw land, no matter what happened. Then, when he asked if they would be making contact with Naomi, he was told by the leader – Martin Keamy, the man who was nominally in charge of the mission – that the retrieval of Naomi was no longer priority, only that of Ben Linus.

The flight itself had not been a picnic. Even though it had taken them less than forty minutes to fly from the freighter to the island, the sun was setting when they saw the island - despite the fact they had left at dawn. This didn't seem to bother Keamy, or if it did, he didn't even respond to Frank's questions. He then ordered Frank not to make landfall at the beach, even though it was starting to rain heavily, but to fly due east, and land on what was the far side of the island. Frank listened, even though he was beginning to have severe doubts about what the purpose of this mission was.

By the time he set the chopper down, he was beginning to seriously question why he'd signed up for this. When he tried to voice some of his concerns to Keamy, he'd been told very bluntly that his job was only to fly the helicopter. He'd then ordered one of the soldiers to stay behind, and make sure that anyone who approached this helicopter was to be shot. No questions asked.

The soldier who remained – Kokol – hadn't said a single word for more than four hours. Frank repeated tried to start a conversation with him, trying to figure out any details. Kokol never even acknowledged his existence.

It didn't matter. By now, Frank had realized, far too late for it to do any good – that he was seriously fucked. He didn't know what this island was or what the soldiers were really doing here, but he sure as hell hadn't signed up for it. He knew as soon as Keamy as his men achieved their objective and they were back on the freighter, the first thing they would no doubt do was throw him overboard, and that was if Keamy was in a _generous _mood. So really, the only thing he could do was try to get away. He might spend the rest of his life marooned, but that seemed preferable to the alternative.

Unfortunately, Kokol was smarter than that. And when Frank casually mentioned that he needed to go take a leak, he had told them to do it in front of him. Frank had tried to protest, and Kokol had reacted by cuffing him to the wheel. This basically confirmed that his hours were numbered.

And indeed, they might've been had, not more than an hour later, Kokol had heard something in the bushes. He ordered Frank not to move – rather ridiculous under the circumstances – and had ordered whoever was there to come out. Less than a second later, he had taken an arrow in the chest.

Out of the jungle had come Danielle, Alex and Karl. Danielle had leveled the crossbow at him for more than two minutes, waiting for Frank to come up with appropriate answers. They'd never learned what exactly the questions had been, but Frank had given the right ones because Alex had then helped free him.

Danielle was more than willing to heed his warnings, because her next move had been to tell him to follow her. Frank had needed no second bidding, even when he encountered the wall of the Temple. There were now two armed men standing guard, but when they saw Alex and Karl, they lowered their weapons. Alex and Karl managed to make clear that the soldiers were on the island, and that they had one chance to intercept them.

When the group had finished telling him that much of the story, John was genuinely stunned. He'd gotten some of the details from Frank and Danielle, but never the whole story.

"The thing is, he told us all that, but never mentioned that he met you," Kate had finally said.

"That's because I told him it was better for him if he never mentioned that he'd seen me," Locke told him.

Now Claire was a little shocked. "Even though you'd help save our lives?"

"First of all, I wouldn't have exactly called it that. More like I was in the right place at the right time." Locke said. "And secondly, I didn't think after our last meeting that certain people would want to hear from me. I figured you might end up doubting him."

Jack nodded a little shamefully. "I probably wouldn't have been inclined to trust him. As it was, it took more than his word to make us believe we were safe now."

"What exactly did you end up telling him?" Sayid asked.

"It was a little more complicated than that," Locke said. "As it was, I had enough of my plate right then.

**WHOOOSH**

This was an even odder gathering than some of the ones John had been a part of. Besides Lennon, there were six Others gathering around still heavily armed. Rousseau was now dealing with the people she'd spent sixteen years avoiding. Ben, however, walked over to Rousseau first.

"Is Alex safe?" he asked quietly.

Danielle fixed him with a glare. "I remember you now," she said solemnly. "You're the one who took her from me."

Locke had long thought he was thrown by the things that Ben could've done. Apparently, he wasn't. This time, however, he chose to listen.

For his part, Ben didn't dissemble. "They wanted me to kill you both," he admitted. "I thought it was wrong to kill an infant and her mother. I've done everything I can to protect Alex since then."

"Except tell her I was alive," Danielle said with a ridiculous level of detachment. "The island didn't break me. That did. Did you even think about that when you were raising her as your own?"

For the first time, Ben dropped his eyes to the ground. "I thought it was for the greater good."

Danielle looked at him for a very long time. "I kept my word, even when I was helping them," she said sadly. "You know my biggest regret? I should've aimed higher when you were running away from me."

Locke remembered how Sayid had brought Ben into the hatch nearly two months ago. The interactions between the two made even more sense now.

"Alex lost me when she was a week old," Danielle said slowly. "I won't have her live the rest of her life with the man she thought was her father's death on her conscience."

"Thank you, Danielle," Ben said graciously.

"You gave me a warning sixteen years ago. I'll return the favor." Danielle said calmly. "If you ever see me in the jungle, make sure I don't see you. Or I might forget my promise. My mind has never quite been what it used to be."

Ben looked even more scarred than his encounter with the smoke monster, and why shouldn't he? In the space of less than twenty four hours, on top of everything else that had happened, he'd had to confront the image of his worst sins – the murder of his father and the virtual disownment of the woman he'd raised as his daughter. Locke had a feeling that even if he were to give back leadership to him, it wouldn't matter any more. Ben was truly broken. It said something for how much circumstances had changed that he could take no joy in his triumph over the man who'd shot him and left him for dead.

He decided to focus on the relative stranger in their midst – the man who'd introduced himself as Frank Lapidus. "How'd you get mixed up with a person like Charles Widmore?" he asked.

"How'd you get mixed up with a person like Benjamin Linus?" Frank countered.

"I trusted the wrong people," Locke said slowly.

"So did I," Frank countered. "Jury's still out on whether I'm trusting the right ones now."

Locke listened to his story, and didn't interrupt. "The captain said that Ben put the plane at the bottom of the ocean," he said when he was finished.

"He didn't say so directly, but that was the implication," Frank told him wryly. "In retrospect, it does seem more likely that the reclusive billionaire did it than this guy. But then, you know him better than I do."

"They're pretty confident that Widmore did this," Locke said slowly. "Richard and Ben think the man is capable of doing things far worse than this."

"Including killing everybody on this island?" When John raised an eyebrow, Frank said: "I heard your little speech from the galleries, and considering who he hired, I'm inclined to believe you now."

"He wants this island very badly," Locke said quietly. "And I think the fact that you found this place indicates just how many rocks he was willing to turnover."

"Well as interesting as that is, it's a lesser concern," Frank said slowly. "Right now, I wanted to find out what happened to the survivors of Oceanic 815, and considering that I'm talking to one right now, I have to move on to my next priority."

Locke was momentarily dumbstruck. "I memorized the manifest," he told him. "Which brings me to my next question: are there any more of you?"

John considered this for a moment. Here was yet another moment of truth. He wanted to protect the island, and in a way, he'd done that. So the question was: how long was he going to keep the rest of his fellow survivors hostage to his quest? "Do you think you could find your boat again if you got back to your helicopter?" he asked Frank.

"I get back to my chopper, no problem," Frank asked.

"The people aboard this freighter – the Kahana, I think you called it – are the rest of the crew of the mindset of the soldiers who just got killed?"

"Honestly, I think they share my other priority, which is getting back to safe waters."

Here it was. Locke looked around. There seemed to be a busy conversation going on. "You still trust Danielle?"

"As much as I trust anyone who saves my life these days," Frank replied.

"Tell her you want to be taken back to the beach. My guess is they probably went back there to look for your boat," Locke said slowly.

"Who's they?"

"Everyone else who survived the crash. You should have some interesting stories to trade," Locke said. "The man in charge – Jack - tell him that you'll take as many people as you think will fit on your helicopter and get them back to your boat as quickly as you can. One of them is a man named Desmond Hume. My guess is he'll be very interested to know about whose boat you're on."

If Frank was puzzled, he gave no sign of it. "What else?"

"When you get back to the freighter, convince the captain that it's in his best interest to use whatever life rafts or other conveyances to ferry passengers back and forth from the island."

"Okay, but why can't you come with me and tell them yourself?" Frank asked, puzzled.

"Because even if I was interested in leaving, there's no way in hell the other survivors want to see my face right now." Locke said slowly.

Frank considered this. "There's a story here I'm never going to learn, am I?"

"Not considering you want to leave as badly as they do. Which is also why you're not going to mention that you saw me at all." Locke saw Frank's reaction. "Trust me, you're going to have enough problems with your credibility already. My name will just drag you down."

"Is there anything else?" Frank said, only half in sarcasm.

"One last thing. So listen carefully."

**WHOOOSH**

"So you convinced him how he phrased things," Jack said.

When Frank had shown up with Danielle, he had explained basically everything that John had said. He had finished up by saying: "Anyone who wants to leave can come with me." It had been the kind of careful word use that Ben had used while he was with the Others.

They'd all been puzzled, when a few of the men and woman who had gone through all of these treks back and forth had said they weren't coming with them. None of them had exactly been popular, but this biggest shock had been when Rose and Bernard, who had gone through such an effort to stop the Others had told Jack that they had no intention of leaving the island.

Hurley looked at Locke. "Do you know why Rose and Bernard stayed behind?"

"Yes," Locke told them. "And to be honest, I'm surprised they went to all that effort to help knowing that they had no intention of leaving."

"I don't understand," Jack said.

"Rose is a very honest person. She was always the most open of us on the island," Locke told them. "But like everybody else, she was keeping a secret. She and Bernard were in Australia because they'd gone to visit some kind of psychic healer. Isaac something."

"Isaac of Uluru?" Claire spoke up. "I read about him in some magazine. Apparently, he had the ability to heal people with crippling defects or illnesses that can't be treated by doctors." She trailed off. "Was one of them sick?"

Locke nodded. "She had cancer. She'd been in remission until about a month before she got on the plane. When it came back, she had maybe a year to live."

"Bernard took her to see him," Claire said. "Did he heal her?"

"No. The island did." Locke said quietly. "The thing is, I knew about it. Just before we got on the plane, she dropped one of her vial of pills, and it rolled to me. I'd been around enough hospitals in my time to know a heavy duty painkiller when I saw one."

James looked at him. "She knew about your secret, too."

"She recognized a fellow traveler when she saw one. And just like me, when she woke up on the island, she knew it had been healed." Locke looked at Jack. "That would've been harder for some of you to accept than what happened to me – you'd have never believed her with out some kind of X-ray – but the way she put it was, when you've been as sick as long and as horribly as she was, you know when its no longer in you. She knew the island was a special place. She just didn't think it mattered. Except to Bernard."

Jack just shook his head. "She always seemed more spiritually in tune than any of us. She knew Bernard was alive, even when I tried to convince her he wasn't." He looked at John. "How are they doing?"

John gave one of his old, beatific smiles. "They're doing fine, Jack. They told they'd be happy as long as they were together. And they'll be together for a very long time."

"Um, you do know how that sounds right?" Hurley said.

"There's a reason for that, but the explanation doesn't come until I'm near the end of my story. And I'm way far from that." Locke said calmly. "My priority right then was clarifying my position. And given what had just happened, I wanted to be sure of that."

**WHOOOSH**

John had made sure that Lapidus and Rousseau had a chance to get away before he approached Richard, who was currently in an intense discussion with Lennon. "Is the island safe now?"

Richard considered this. "We're trying to figure that part out now. You were right about the island not being easy to find, but that doesn't mean Widmore's going to give up just because this mission failed."

"I hope you're not suggesting we have to do something about the boat as well," Locke said sternly. "I made my position on further bloodshed very clearly."

"And look how well that nearly turned out," Ben seemed to be falling back to his old standby of debasing Locke.

"That's as maybe, but my position remains the same," Locke said. "I was willing to die for this island. I'm not willing to kill to protect it. And if I am to be your new leader, my orders have to mean something, Richard. Unless, of course, I'm not as special as you said I was."

Richard knew that John had basically boxed him in. "Well then, there's the issue of your friends," he said quietly.

"I have pretty much burned up all my bridges with them getting here, so I think calling them my friends would be an overreach," Locke said quietly. "Unless, of course, you can explain to me why they should stay on the island beyond 'Jacob's rules.'"

Richard looked even more perturbed than he had even at the Tempest. "Everybody has orders to follow, John –"

"Yes. And I've followed them. I've followed Ben's orders. I've followed the island's orders. I followed your orders. Now, I'm the leader. And unless I'm mistaken about the term, that means I get to give orders for a change." John crossed his arms. "Do you need to check with Jacob on this? Because believe me, I've got a lot of questions to ask him."

This was dangerously close to Ben's approach to leadership – throwing down ultimatums based on a higher authority and just expecting no one to call you on it. Indeed, he was a little surprised Ben didn't make some kind of snide commentary. But he was back to looking disheartened, and why shouldn't he? He'd lost his daughter to her mother, and any claim he had to leadership was clearly gone.

"If you think it's best, then we will let your friends leave," Richard said slowly. "But there are going to be consequences once they get back to the outside world."

Locke actually started to laugh for the first time in he didn't know how long. It seemed to unsettle Ben, and it definitely unnerved Richard.

"Have you been on this island so long that you forget what it's like to an outsider?" John said slowly. "Ever since the crash, all everyone has wanted to do what get off this island. Or did you not listen to us when you spent so much time kidnapping them?"

"Some of them have changed their minds," Richard said slowly.

"I'd raise an argument as to how much the ones you've indoctrinated have 'changed their minds'. Even if they did of their own free will, the fact is you had to kidnap them to do it. Or did you forget what you sent Ethan to do?" Locke said quietly.

Lennon clearly heard this, and seemed on the verge of assuming his old authority. "None of you came here by chance, John," he said slowly.

"You think I don't know that?" Locke said angrily. "I've been making that argument to anyone who will listen the two months I was with my people. Ben and Mikhail made the same arguments to them on more than one occasion. Look where it got you. I'm the only one who wants to stay. One of your own people defected after being around them for less than a week. You think there might be something wrong with your closing technique?"

Richard and Ben both looked decidedly uneasy. And it was clear why. Aside from Lennon, the remaining Others were starting to mutter to themselves. He was beginning to wonder when the last time was someone had seriously challenged the order of things. They weren't looking at John like they were afraid a lightning bolt was going to strike him dead. They looked like they had been thinking these same thoughts for a long time, but had never had the courage to ask them.

"I've done everything the island asked," John said in a quieter tone. "And people have died because of my leadership. Not as many as under his" he indicated Ben, " but I haven't been here nearly as long. The rest of the passengers, they're not interested in some higher purpose. They want to go home. Back to running water and not having to kill their own food or being chased by a giant cloud of smoke or being stalked by a group of people in the jungle. Everything you think makes this place special defies their notions of reality. Now maybe if you had explained it to them a little better they might've been willing to hear you out. But you've used up all your chances. So have I. Ben couldn't convince them, I couldn't convince them, and I'm pretty sure Jacob couldn't convince them. That may be blasphemy, but it's also the truth."

Again, there was more murmuring. John wasn't certain whether it was favorable or not this time. He knew he'd done the island equivalent of hanging his crucifix upside down in the Vatican, but none of what he had said was a lie. None of the survivors wanted to stay on this island. Jack would no doubt put a gun to his head if he showed his face again, and he seriously doubted than any of the rest would do a thing to stop him. He thought that they were all making a huge mistake, but he also knew that there was nothing he could say or do to convince them to stay. He believed in destiny, but no one else did except maybe Desmond, and he wanted to go home as badly as the rest of them.

"I am now the leader of your people, Richard," he finally said. "And my first order is that the remaining survivors of this crash are going to go home. I don't know if they'll be happier there then they would be here, but I also know forcing them to stay isn't going to make them like the island any better. You might've considered that before you eliminated that option."

The moment he said that, he knew it was absolutely the right decision. Because he had tried it the other way, and had ended up being completely isolated from the other survivors. Perhaps he'd have better luck persuading people who wanted to be here.

Richard looked genuinely uncomfortable here. John knew that Richard was behind his being in this position, but now he was being asked to go against he'd spent a lifetime – maybe several – following. Ben looked genuinely stunned. This was not the Locke he'd spent the past five weeks trying to manipulate, and he was clearly unnerved by the change. And the real reason they were both unnerved was because, for the first time, all of the Others were now looking at John to tell them what to do next.

One of them – a woman – came forward. "What should we do about Linus?" she asked.

That was the moment Ben's rule was truly over. He'd been in charge for more than a decade, and now a woman had just dismissed him the same way they'd discussed all of the other passengers. He would stay on the island for another six months, but as of that moment, he was now back to being an outsider.

Locke knew that he could've been cruel and vindictive – God knows that Ben had been the same in that position – but he knew if he was to establish his leadership there had to be a clear demarcation between his way and Ben's. "I don't believe I know your name," he asked the woman.

"Vanessa," she said calmly.

"It is my understanding that you have a process of justice when one of your own is responsible for the death of another," Locke said calmly.

Lennon, who'd been remarkably quiet until this point, said softly. "Your people killed the ones at the beach."

"I'm not talking about that," Locke said. "He shot me and left me for dead." He rolled up his undershirt. "Don't try to talk your way out of this one, Ben," he said as he showed the bullet hole.

Richard looked a little stunned to see this – John realized, in all the chaos that had unfolded over the new arrivals, he'd neglected to mention what exactly had happened when they'd gone to see 'Jacob'. He turned to Ben, and for the first time seemed genuinely angry.

"You know the rules, Ben," he said calmly.

Ben now looked genuinely afraid for the first time since this had begun. Before he could even begin to offer a defense, two of his people had grabbed him and knocked him down.

"Where do you want us to put him, John?" Whatever doubts Richard was having about John as leader, they were clearly superseded by Ben's actions.

Locke considered this for a moment. "Take him back to the Barracks," he said quietly. "He's to be held under armed guard until I decide an appropriate punishment."

They grabbed him and started pulling Ben away. "You think the island will just tell its secrets to you, John?" he shouted defiantly.

"I don't know, Ben," Locke said turning away. "I do know you were never going to give them to me the way things were. Maybe a month on what we've been living on the last three months will motivate you more. Or maybe you can fly off the island through the 'magic box'.

As they took Ben away, Lennon looked puzzled: "What's the magic box?"

Locke just shook his head. "Another web of lies spun by the trickster. It's not worth discussing."

"You know how dangerous he can be," Richard said calmly. "You sure this is how you want to just send him back to his old house?"

"Ben's only a problem when people believe his lies," Locke pointed out. "If the last few weeks have proven anything, it's that no one will dare listen to him anymore."

"What do you want to do next, John?" Richard said quietly.

"First of all, we're going back to the Temple," he said quietly. "It's been a long day, and I think we all need to eat and get some sleep. And once we've done that, you're going to honor the promise you made."

This time, Richard didn't hesitate. "All I can tell you, John, is what I know about the island. I can't promise you that I'll have all the answers you're looking for."

"I'm willing to wait about seeing Jacob," Locke said quietly "But you'd better explain what exactly you know."

**WHOOOSH**

Locke paused, and took a drink of water. "This next part's going to be hard for some of you to hear." He may have been talking to all of them, but everyone knew he was speaking to Jack.

"Does it have to do with destiny, John?" Jack asked quietly.

"I know how frustrated you were when I used it," Locke said slowly. "And if you didn't like hearing it from me, you're going to like it even less when you hear this part."

Sayid, surprisingly, spoke up. "Are you saying this Jacob is the one who brought us to the island?"

"You've already admitted that you were supposed to be on the plane," Locke said quietly. "Why should the idea that someone arranged for you to be on it be so much harder to handle?"

"Because it's one thing to believe in a higher power," Sayid said quietly. "I've always held firm to one. But it's harder to accept that God is living on a tropical island in the Pacific, and that he's been directing all our movements since the day he was born."

"All right. Then I'll talk about it only as it applies to me," Locke said calmly. "I had several conversations with Richard over the next few weeks, and one of the things he made clear was that I was chosen to be on the island long before I got on the plane. In fact, he'd followed Jacob's order to try and recruit me on at three occasions before that."

"You knew Richard before then?" James said incredulously.

"There's no way I could've remembered the first two," Locke said slowly. "As for the third, he wasn't there for it."

"Start at the beginning, John." Jack said.

John gave a small smile. "Interesting you should use those words. When you looked at my medical file, I've no doubt you got the complete one."

Juliet answered. "You mean the one about you being three months premature and having the first two months of your life in an incubator."

Locke nodded. "From what I was told, when the doctor asked my mother if she wanted to hold me, she ran away in a panic. My grandmother waited all of five seconds to ask about putting me into foster care."

"How the hell did you know that?" Jack demanded.

"Richard was there, wasn't he?" Juliet said quietly.

"He didn't think there was anything particularly special about me, so he left." Locke said. "According to him, the next time he came to see me was at one of my foster homes when I was five. He called himself Dr. Alpert, and send that he was the head of a school for very special children, and he thought I might be one of them."

Hurley couldn't help a smirk. "He used the Charles Xavier pitch?"

"X-Men wasn't created for another five years, so I don't think he felt any risk of being contradicted, Hugo," Locke said quietly. "In any case, he took out some objects and asked me which of these belonged to me. Apparently I asked: "You mean which of these are mine to keep?' and he said: 'Which of these are already yours?' He then took out a vial of sand, a baseball glove, a compass, a comic book, a knife, and something called 'The Book of Laws'.

"I'm sorry, but he expected to make you one of them based on a choice you made before you started kindergarten?" James spoke up.

"When the Dalai Lama dies, representatives of his go to where they thing the next potential Lama might be. Usually it's a toddler," Locke said in a way reminiscent of his old storytelling. "They then present objects, some of which belonged to the previous Lama, to this child, and if he makes the proper selections, the new Dalai Lama has been indoctrinated. Maybe Richard was performing a similar ritual."

"I'm guessing you didn't pass," Jack was still taking this in.

"According to Richard, I took the vial of sand, then I took the compass, and then I hesitated over the Book of Laws before I eventually chose the knife. Richard asked me if I was sure about that last one, and then said I was wrong. He left and told my foster mother I wasn't special after all."

"Dude, that's harsh to a five year old," Hurley said sympathetically.

"Yes," Sun said. "Especially since you'd think that a knife was something that already was yours."

"Well, I was closer than I would get for a very long time," Locke said. "The third time was in high school. My tenth grade chemistry professor had just pulled me out of my locker, and was trying to get me to say who had done it."

"We follow strange codes of ethics when were children," Kate said sadly.

"Mr. Rainey told me that I had received an offer from a 'Professor Alpert' about attending a special science camp at a school sponsored by a company called Mittelos." Locke said.

"Thirty years leaving the island and he never varied his pitch that much," Juliet said quietly.

"You were a science whiz?" Jack said doubtfully.

"Believe it or not, I had a flare for it back then." Locke told them. "But I kept railing against it. I told Mr. Rainey that science class was I kept getting shoved in lockers. And that I liked fishing and camping and sports, even though back then, I could barely stand being outside for nearly five minutes."

"That's almost as hard to picture as you being a science nerd," Hurley admitted.

"Rainey knew me better than I wanted to admit. And speaking from the bottom of his heart, he told me that you can't always be the quarterback and be elected prom king. And I just looked at him, and said what I always said. 'Don't tell me what I can't do.'"

They all considered this for a moment. "I get it, John. A lot of the time growing up, we don't listen to adults when they tell us what they need to hear." Jack said quietly. "Especially when it hurts."

John looked at Jack. "I can't picture you getting shoved in a locker."

"My best friend before I ended up on the plane was Marc Silverman," Jack said quietly. "Went as far back as third grade. One day when we were both nine, Tommy Hartigan started beating the crap out of Marc. Being a good friend, I tried to pull him off Marc. Tommy starts wailing on me, knocks me to the ground, and starts kicking me. He tells me to stay down. I kept getting up. He bloodied my nose, and knocked out two of my teeth."

"Kids can be cruel sometime," Hurley said sadly. "I never got shoved in any lockers, but I took a lot hazing when I was in gym class. Took a couple of beatings."

"And back then, I probably would've one of those kids handing them out," James said with a touch of melancholy. "I know all about bullying. From both sides unfortunately."

Sayid shook his head. "I think I was closer to James than any of you," he admitted. "My brother Omar was never as strong as I was, even though he was two years older than me. At least part of my nature was forged in my childhood, in trying to protect him."

Walt spoke up. "Did girls do a lot of fighting when you were growing up?" he asked Kate.

"I was something of a tomboy growing up," Kate said quietly. "That didn't make me popular with a lot of the girls or some of the boys."

Locke shook his head. "I guess we had something in common long before we got on the plane," he said sadly.

Juliet, whose own childhood hadn't been much of a picnic either, decided to try and drag them away from the past. "Was Richard make similar trips for all of us?" she said quietly.

"Not always." Locke paused. "But Jacob sometimes did."

"When did you finally meet Jacob?" Jack asked.

"Not for several months," Locke said. "But before I met him, I had several more conversations with Richard, and when I heard Richard's own story, many of the mysteries that surrounded the island made a lot more sense. Since there is a matter of time before we have to get back to the business of living, I think the simplest thing to do is tell Richard's story."

"How long is it?" Hurley asked.

"What matters is how he came to the island, how he met Jacob, and how he got his job." Locke told them. "Once you hear that, a lot of your questions will be answered."


	11. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

"Richard grew up on Tenerife. That's actually on a different island. One of the Canaries."

"When?" Juliet asked.

"He was born in September 12, 1834." Locke said quietly. "It took him more than a minute to remember what day it was. That's how long it had been since he gave it any thought."

They all paused as the idea of someone who had lived that long really sunk in.

"He was a farmer for much of his life, and he had few ambitions beyond that. Until he met Isabella when he was twenty-two. Isabella was the one for him, the same way Sun is for Jin, or any of the rest of you." Locke said slowly. "Two years later, when he had saved enough money, they were married. They bought fifteen acres of land, and Richard said he would've been perfectly happy if he'd spent the rest of his life as a farmer. Even when the harvests were bad, which was frequently, he was fine as long as he had Isabella. But they were barely making enough to live, so he and Isabella began to plan to come to the New World. "

"I'm guessing they never made it there," James said sadly.

"In the spring of 1867, Isabella was overcome by consumption. For those of you who didn't study old medicine, it's what we now call tuberculosis. Richard rode off in a pouring rain with all the money he had in the world, and his wife's golden cross to find the closest doctor he could. When he got there, the doctor refused to travel in the downpour and said he had medicine that would treat her. Expensive medicine." Locke shook his head. "The doctor dangled hope in front of him, and then laughed in his face when he told him the cross his wife had worn since she was a child was worthless. Richard - Ricardos as he called himself then - tried to snatch the medicine away. He pushed the doctor, and he slipped on the floor and accidentally broke his skull."

This came as a shock to everyone, especially Juliet, who had never thought Richard was capable of violence.

"The doctor's servant saw this, and Richard ran away in a panic. In what was to be the first of many cruel ironies, he never even found out if the medicine was genuine. Isabella had passed while he was gone. He had no time even to mourn, because minutes later, the authorities were pounding on his door."

"I'm guessing the criminal justice system was even suckier than it was when I went to prison," James said with melancholy.

"The trial lasted less than an hour," Locke said. "Richard was sentenced to hang. Now you wouldn't think the situation could've gotten any worse for him, but when the priest came to see him the night before he was to be executed, his fate was sealed. Richard confessed his sin, and asked the father for absolution. The priest wouldn't give it. He told him that murder was a mortal sin, and that the only way to be forgiven was through doing penance. Since Richard was about to be hung, there was no way that could happen. He told him flat out he was going to burn in hell."

Desmond actually reacted angrily to this. "What kind of priest was this?" he demanded.

"That wasn't even the depths of his villainy." Locke said. "The priest had seen Richard reading a bible in English. He and his wife had taught himself that for their life in America. Just hours before the execution was to take place, he was led into another room. An English sailor demanded to know if he spoke English, and if he was willing to work. When he frantically said he was, he looked at the priest and handed him some gold coins. Then he told Richard he was now the property of Captain Magnus Hanso. "

Everybody exchanged glances at that, but Penny and Desmond actually shuddered at this. "I think we know the next part of this story," Penny said quietly. "Richard ended up being a prisoner aboard the Black Rock."

There was a minor uproar at this. Hurley finally reacted first. "And I'm guessing that's how Richard came to the island. He was one of the men in the hull, next to the dynamite."

Locke nodded. "Richard told me that after he finally was freed from that ship, he never went back to it. Not once in the nearly 140 years he spent on the island did he ever want to see it again. And given how horrible the experience was, I can't say I blame him."

"What happened? How did the Black Rock find the island?" Jack asked.

"Richard was shackled to twelve other prisoners in the hull of the ship. They basically considered him cargo," Locke shook his head. "Even the deck hands barely made eye contact when they brought down food and water."

Michael shook his head. "I thought slavery was basically dead by that time," he said.

"There were still some countries that practiced it Africa and South America," Locke said. "Richard said he thought they were headed for Mozambique. But even the prisoners could tell after awhile that something wasn't quite right. After sailing for days, for a long time the ship didn't move at all. Richard wasn't certain, but he thought they stayed moored for at least a week. The crew started acting strangely – the last few days, it was a different man who gave them food, and they always seemed to have bloody noses. The last time they were fed, the bostwain showed up, talking to people who weren't there."

This sounded a little too much like the 'cabin fever' Frank had told them about on the freighter. "What finally happened?" Kate asked.

"A storm occurred practically out of nowhere. One that was probably on the level of a monsoon. The prisoners were all sure they were going to die at sea. Then one of the prisoners saw land, and thought that there might be hope. Then he looked outside, and said he saw a statue of the Devil. And that they were in Hell itself. Richard managed to look outside through one, and saw something that looked very much like a demon. Then there was a giant wave, and he blacked out." Locke looked at them. "And that is how the Black Rock ended up in the middle of the jungle."

If all Richard's story had done was reveal that puzzle that had troubled everybody who had gone to the Black Rock, it would've been enough. But at that moment, Sun and Jin looked at each other. Then they shared a glance with Sayid, who nodded. "That statue," Sun finally said. "How close a look did Richard get at it?"

"He saw it through a pouring rain," Locke paused. "But to answer your next question, the only thing that was left was a foot. And yes, it had four toes."

Now Sayid responded. "How on earth could a wooden boat have collided with a stone statue and yet somehow that was what was destroyed?"

"Richard couldn't answer that question. " Locke said slowly. "But from what he told me, there may have been a good reason the ship made it through. I'll get to it."

"Only four prisoners survived the shipwreck. Then one of the officers came below – Richard recognized him as the man who had bought him. He took out his sword, and stabbed the other three prisoners through the heart. When Richard demanded why, he said the captain was dead, and only five officers were left. The ship was in the middle of the jungle with no water and limited supplies. If he didn't kill them, they'd surely turn on him. The only thing that saved Richard's life was that very moment, he heard the sound of crashing and chains rattling. There was some noise above, and there were sounds of screaming. The officer yelled out: 'Report!" Then that cloud of smoke came below deck, grabbed the officer by the ankles, and hauled him through the deck." Locke hesitated. "After that, Richard was sure that he was dead, and this was Hell."

James shook his head. "After seeing that thing, I can't say I'd argue with him."

"Richard was the only person left on the Black Rock, and he was chained to the wall with the keys above deck if they were anywhere. He said was certain of everything that happened from that moment on. The only thing he couldn't state for certainty was how long he was below deck. He spent what seemed to be an infinite about time, trying to loosen one of the bolts just enough so he could reach some water which was dripping from the outside. He just couldn't get close enough. And then, something even worse than that happened."

They were all terrified to ask what it could've been. The answer was even more shocking than that.

"His wife was there. Richard didn't know what to think. Isabella told him that this was Hell, Richard was dead, and that the devil was chasing after her. Then he heard the monster. He told Isabella to run. She did, but then he heard her scream as if –" Locke shook a little. "It sounded like she was being torn apart. After that he passed out, whether it was from exhaustion or fright, he never knew."

"Richard wasn't sure how long he was unconscious. But he only woke up again because he heard someone rustling around there. After everything that happened, he wasn't sure who it was coming for him but he knew that he couldn't stay there. He screamed for help."

Locke paused. "And then came someone who I am certain none of us ever saw the entire time we were on the island. It was a man who was dressed all in black. A black shirt, dark pants, black sandals. He had a dark beard and salt-and-pepper hair. His clothing looked even older than the kind Richard wore. He spoke to Richard in a kind voice, told him he wanted to help him, that he found some keys on a body above ground, and he thought they might fit. He said he'd help Richard – if he agreed to help him. Richard was frantic to get free, and yet he was cautious still. He asked him was this Hell? And the man spoke in a voice that was filled with sadness: 'I'm afraid it is'. Richard asked if there was some way to escape, and he said there might be, if we help each other. Will you do that? And Richard promised. The man unlocked him, and said: 'It's good to see you out of those chains.'

James looked at Juliet. "He ever tell you about this guy?" he asked.

"This is the first I've ever heard of him," Juliet admitted.

"You keep saying 'this man'," Hurley asked. "Didn't Richard, like, know his name?"

"Richard was so concerned with being free and getting something to eat and drink, he never bothered to ask him," Locke told them. "And once he got free, all he cared about was seeing Isabella again. He didn't know if he was dead or if he somehow was in hell, either he was thinking there might be a way to escape, and maybe someone who's been here longer than me will know how to get out. It never even occurred to him that the man he was talking to, might be another evil spirit."

Jack looked at John. "You know who he is? Or what he is?"

"I have an idea," Locke said. "But you have to let me finish Richard's story first."

"After he'd gotten a better handle of himself, Richard asked the man if he'd seen his wife. The man said, he might be here, but the only way to try and find her was to get to the man in charge. As he put it, 'to escape from hell, you have to kill the devil'. Richard was stunned, but not stunned to ask why he didn't do it himself. The man answered: 'Just as he took something from you, he took something from me. He took my body'. Richard could barely fathom this. Then the man took out this dagger. It looked like something that a gladiator might have once carried in his scabbard. He told Richard to go to the beach, and he would find the devil here. 'You have only one chance. Once you see him, stab him in the chest. Do not let him say a word. If you let him speak, it will already be too late.'"

They were starting to connect dots themselves. "He was talking about Jacob, wasn't he?" Sayid asked.

"Richard still thought he was in hell, and since he had gotten here because he had taken a live, however inadvertently, he didn't want to do so again. He tried to ask more questions, but his savior. "There are all kind of things I can tell you. The question is: do you want to see your wife again?' Richard was so desperate to see Isabella, he nodded his assent. It didn't occur to him until much later that this man had never _promised _him he would see his wife. He just implied it."

"He walked forever until he got to the beach. This is where the remains of the statue was. The minute he got there, he saw the man he was looking for."

"What the hell did Jacob look like?"

"He was dressed in the same kind of clothing the man who saved him was. Only this was all white. White shirt, white pants, white sandals. And he had sandy blonde hair."

"'Two players, two sides. One is light, one is dark.' Walt said quietly.

"Believe me, Walt, I really was just talking about backgammon when we met," Locke said sincerely. "I knew the island was a miraculous place, but I didn't think I was that prescient."

He resumed his story. Richard took the dagger out, and ran towards him. But he was still weak from the time in the Black Rock, and he couldn't get a straight shot. The man demanded in an angry tone: "Why are you trying to kill me?' Richard said: 'Because I want to leave.' 'Jacob said: 'Why?" Richard answered: "Because this is Hell'.

"Jacob's reactions was to punch Richard in the throat, grab by the scruff of the neck, and dunk him in the ocean. Richard thought he was saying something, but he couldn't hear it. Finally he shouted at him to stop. Jacob demanded why, and Richard said: 'Because I want to live!' Jacob pulled him out, and said: 'That's the first sensible thing you've send.'

'"After that, things got a little more civilized. They introduced themselves. Jacob actually poured him a cup of wine, and asked him if he'd met someone. Richard told him he had, and that he thought he was in hell. He asked who he was, and Jacob said: 'He and I have a disagreement,' which was a monumental understatement. Richard then asked the question that I'm sure we all were thinking at least once a day when we were on the island: 'What is this place?'

"Please tell me the dude got an answer," Hurley said quietly.

"Jacob took out the bottle of wine. 'Think of this wine as what you keep calling Hell. There's many other names f0r it, too: malevolence, evil, darkness. And here it is, swirling around in this bottle unable to get out, because if it did, it would spread. The cork is this island. And it's the only thing keeping the darkness where it belongs. That man who sent you to kill me believes that everyone is corruptible because its in their very nature to sin. I bring people here to prove him wrong, and when they get here, their past doesn't matter.'"

Locke had the great judgment to stay quiet immediately after that last statement. He knew he'd just leveled something that was as explosive and unstable as the dynamite that had been in the Black Rock all those years. He expected everybody who heard this to be upset and angry to learn that they were caught up in a chess game between what seemed to be two immortal entities without asking their permission.

Jack finally reacted. "He called us to the island."

"Not just us," Locke reminded them. "The Black Rock, Rousseau and her team, hell that puddle jumper managed to get all the way from Nigeria just to crash there. I was as angry as you are right now."

That actually got everybody's attention. "Why?" Kate said quietly. "You were right. You were right all along."

"I thought everything I'd gone through, all the suffering and tragedy I had lived through was to bring me to this place," Locke said quietly. "Now imagine learning that not only was I not unique in this regard, but the only thing I had been brought here for was to be a pawn in a larger game. Before I got to the island, I was used by father. When I got there, Ben manipulated me for months. Now I realize the only reason I was brought here was to be used _again. _"

"Not to mention all that 'our past doesn't matter' crap," James muttered. "I'm pretty sure I speak for all of us to say than when we were on that island, the past really mattered to us."

"And I'm sorry," Kate said with the first burst of anger any of them had heard from her in a long time, "there's no way that Jacob brought all of us there for just some goddamn experiment."

"Right on all counts," Locke said. "But if there was a reason, Richard didn't know it. And at that point, Jacob clearly didn't have any direction. Richard asked where all the other people he'd brought to the island were, and Jacob said plainly that they were all dead. Richard wanted to know why if that kept happening – because he had a feeling that monster had done exactly what had happened on the Black Rock – Jacob wasn't interfering. Jacob said that if he got involved, there would be no point to it. And Richard argued, "If you don't, he will."

"Now it is very possible that Richard was the first man to even present this idea to Jacob. Because he looked at him and asked: 'How would you like a job?' Richard understandably was stunned by this, and asked what Jacob was talking about. 'Well, if I don't intervene, and my colleague always will, why don't you speak for me?' You could be my intermediary between me and anyone else who comes to the island."

"And Richard took him up on this offer," Jack said.

"Richard asked what he would get in return. Jacob asked him what he wanted. This was like getting a wish from God. Only Jacob seemed to be a very specific God. Richard asked if he could bring his wife back to him. Jacob said he couldn't. He asked if Jacob could absolve him of his sins. Jacob said he couldn't do that either."

"Doesn't sound like much of a God." Desmond said.

"Richard didn't want to go to Hell. That was his greatest fear. So he made what he thought was the only wish that could protect him. He said: 'Then I want to live forever.' Jacob gave a small smile, and touched him on the shoulder. 'Now that I can do.'

This was even more shocking, but no one was more stunned than Juliet. "I never knew," she said quietly. "Ben said that he'd been working as an advisor for the leader for a very long time. But even I never suspect his story was that sad."

"He did that job for Jacob ever since," Jack said.

"For the next century, every time Jacob called a boat to the island, he would tell Richard and Richard would be there to help those who had come. Some, he was given to understand, were more than special than others. Some he quickly realized were far more dangerous. And some he couldn't get to in time at all."

"Danielle and her team," Sayid said quietly.

"After the shipwreck, that thing got to them before he ever could. By the time he and his people got there, the monster had infected them and Danielle was already going insane." Locke said sadly. "The rest I've already told you about."

"And he never questioned Jacob's leadership once," Jack said softly.

"When God himself grants you eternal life, you don't question your service to him. That's how Richard put it. From the moment Jacob entrusted him, he has sworn eternal loyalty to him. He preached that gospel to all those who came for more than a century." He looked at Juliet. "I'm guessing from your time on the island everybody bought into it."

Juliet shook her head. "Maybe that's why they never really considered me one of them," she said sadly.

"Did he ever see the other dude again?" Hurley asked.

"Just once." Locke said quietly. "He walked back to the Black Rock for reasons he couldn't fully fathom, and the Man in Black – for lack of a better name for him – was there. He looked at Richard, and said quietly without even a hint of disappointment: 'You let him speak to you, didn't you?'

Richard wasn't sure how he could answer that question. The Man in Black said calmly: 'It's alright. He can be very persuasive. If you ever change your mind, let me know.' And then he did something that almost made Richard think whether he'd misjudged the man. He reached into one of his pockets, and took out something. It was the gold cross that Isabella had always worn. 'I found this in the wreckage', he said. 'I think it belongs to you.' Then he walked away.'

'Richard knew he was never going to see his wife ever again. So he realized he had to leave his old life – and his old God – behind him. So he found a small sapling about ten minutes away, and buried his wife's cross there. He never went back there, or to the Black Rock again. To him, he was trying to make it seem like his past no longer mattered."

Locke paused at the end of his story. "Richard always seemed so calm when I first met him, as if he were incapable of being surprised or upset. Now, I guess it had to do with his immortality. When you've lived nearly a hundred and forty years, you've seen so much that you are incapable of surprise. And I'll be honest. That was just as unsettling as knowing that there was someone on the island who was controlling our destinies."

"You think Jacob didn't just make him immortal because Richard wanted it," Sayid said.

"Jacob had been running the island for centuries, hell maybe millennia," Locke reminded him. "If he was going to have someone as his intermediary, wouldn't it make sense for him to be able to live as long as he'd need him? We've all considered – maybe just for a few minutes, maybe longer – what it would be like to live forever. Seeing Richard, this was the first time I didn't consider it would be much of a gift."

There was a long pause. "Is Jacob…" Even after everything they'd been told, Jack couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence.

Locke could. "God? You're asking the wrong person. Eko might've been able to answer that question better than I could. He believed in God. I believed in the island. In that sense, he probably would've been a better fit for the position than I was."

"What position?" Hurley demanded.

"That, I didn't find out for a few months longer," Locke said quietly. "Richard didn't even know the real reason Jacob was bringing everybody to the island. He managed all those lists for decades, and not once did he even ask what they were for. It wasn't being leader of the Others, that much I did know. The people on the island who Ben led may have been natives of the island, but that didn't make them special. They were guardians of the island, but they didn't even know what they were protecting it from."

"None of them knew about the Man in Black?" Hurley asked.

"Only Richard had a good idea as to what he really was," Locke looked at them. "And considering everything we went through, I think you might have a clearer idea."

They were all quiet for several seconds. Finally, Jin raised his hand. "The monster."

"That's what Richard believed, even though he could never prove it. He never saw it again after that day." Locke told them. "The Others had their own perspective. Some thought it was a security system. Some, like Ben, believed it was the figure of judgment on this island. Some believed it was just pure evil. None of them knew why it killed some people, and left the rest alone. And I was the only who it ever appeared to as something beautiful. I had a long time to think about that. And there's only one explanation I can think of for it."

"What?" Jack asked.

"It was trying to use me too," Locke said quietly. "I don't know for what purpose. The only one that makes sense was that it was trying to somehow convince me that it was the force of good on this island, not Jacob."

"You think it impersonated Jacob in the cabin," Hurley asked.

"Well, it sure as hell wasn't Jacob there," Locke said quietly. "My guess is it tried to use Ben the same way it tried to use me. There is some kind of war going on between Jacob and that thing and…"

"We were just the pieces," Desmond said quietly.

"In that sense, Jack," Locke said quietly. "We were both right and we were both wrong about the island. I was right that it was a special place. One that needed to be protected at all costs. But you were right about being stuck in the middle of a war, and not wanting to get killed in the process."

"We should've listened to each other more," Jack said calmly. "And that is definitely more my fault than it was yours."

Locke nodded. "And as much as I'd like to keep going, I think this is where I have to stop for now."

Indeed, it was late into the night. They'd been speaking, with a couple of stops for meals, for seven hours. Much as there was still to go through, they all knew it was going to take weeks before John reached the end of his story. As Hurley put it, they were going to have to return to the real world.

"So, what's the next step?" Locke asked Jack.

"I talked with my wife and Juliet a bit earlier today," Jack said in a sound that was completely different from the take- charge voice he had used on the island. "We have a couple of ideas about how to try and get you back into the real world too and it basically comes down to which one pisses you off the least."

"Well, I'm grateful you're considering my feelings for a change," Locke said with a bit of jocularity.

"It's a new experience, I admit," Jack said with the same amount. He turned serious. "There might be a way to handle things, but…" He swallowed. "There's no way any of us can see this working unless you're willing to get back in your wheelchair for awhile. I'm truly sorry for that."

Locke's face clouded a little, but not as much as they'd thought it would. "If the alternative is telling the world about the island, I'm willing to make the sacrifice for a little longer. You do know that any scenario that comes along, people are going to ask how I didn't drown or managed to get back to civilization in the first place."

"No one's pretending it'll be a picnic, John," Kate said. "But in a way, there might be a way around that."

"I did some checking on your condition," Jack said quietly. "After your…after what your father did to you, what remedies did you seek?"

"My doctors were pretty clear there were none. I pretty much gave up after six months."

Jack's face actually fell. "There is a surgery. Very high risk, but there is a potential that if it was performed correctly, you would have made a complete recovery."

Locke looked genuinely stunned at this. "They told me it would take a miracle."

"I didn't believe it when I performed it myself," Jack said quietly. "Desmond had more faith in it than I did."

Locke had made so many revelations the last couple of days it was rather stunning to hear this one. "When?"

"Three years before I got on the plane. I've performed it three more times since then, and its been successful two of those time." Jack said quietly.

Locke was genuinely speechless for a minute. "I should've spent more time searching medical journals rather than preparing for a walkabout I could never have gone on," he finally said.

"All roads lead here, John,'" Jack said with genuine sincerity. He returned to his medical mode. "I've talked with Juliet about it because we work together. It'll be a little problematic because she's a fertility specialist, but I'm well aware how good she is in an OR."

"I'm not sure I follow," Locke said.

Jack and Juliet explained the rest. It took less time than it had just to go over the Dharma videos. Locke didn't ask any questions until they were finished.

His next question was for Kate. "You trust this Alan Shore?"

"Aside from the fact he defended me in court and negotiated my settlement?" Kate asked rhetorically. Before Locke could answer, she held up a hand. "I realize what you're really asking, John. The man takes lawyer-client confidentiality seriously. We know if we tell him the bare minimum, he'll be able to help us where we need him "

"This is going to be skirting the edge of the law," Locke said.

Hurley gave a small laugh. "Alan told me when I first met him that he specializes in working in the grey areas. He actually liked me because I never lied to him. He almost never gets clients like that. He says, as long as he working for a worthy cause, he'll do what needs to be done. And I'm pretty sure your case is no different."

Locke thought for a moment. "I'll have to talk it over with Helen before I give you a definitive answer. The last time I made a decision of this magnitude without consulting here, I lost her pretty much for good. Even after everything that's happened, I want to be sure I have her support."

Jack nodded. "She wants to talk to us, we'll make sure you have our numbers. We'll be back next week, you can tell us definitely then."

"Then that just leaves one last issue," Sayid said slowly. "How much of this are you comfortable with us sharing with the people already in the know?"

"Well, your wife already knows most of your story, so it can't hurt for know this much." Locke said quietly. "Same with your parents and your girlfriend, Hugo and your sister, Juliet." He paused for a long moment. "Stevens and Karev, they haven't told anyone else at your hospital about what really happened?

"No," Jack said assuredly. "When you go through something like they did, they learned about the importance of discretion."

"After you found out about my condition before I got on the plane, did you tell them that?"

Jack shook his head. "Absolutely not. I still wasn't sure about the island needing to be protected, but even after everything I told them, the last thing I wanted was a cancer patient chasing a phantom."

"Just tell them I've come back, and fill in whatever gaps you think you can fill in without going completely into the realm of the miraculous," Locke said. "This is one of those cases I'm going to trust your judgment, Jack."

"Now you guys are agreeing," James said, shaking his head. "That's even harder to believe than your own personal miracle."

"In this case, there's also a practical side," Jack said slowly. "For what we have in mind, they might be able to get us through the toughest part."

"Sure you're not interesting in taking up leadership again?" Hurley asked.

"Only in the hospital, Hurley."

Hurley looked at John. "I can wait a little longer to see how all this plays out,:" he said softly. "but maybe you can tell us one spoiler."

"Depends what it is," Locke said calmly.

"This Man in Black, did you ever meet him? You know, when he wasn't the smoke monster?"

Locke hesitated. "Funny you should mention that, Hugo. I never saw the person that Richard said he met. I don't think anybody else on the island even knew he existed. But in a larger sense, I think a bunch of us did."

"I don't follow."

"I think the monster was able to take on the images of the dead. I'm pretty sure that's what Ben saw his father. Before he was killed, Eko told me that he thought his brother was on the island somewhere about an hour before he died." He looked at Jack. "Which makes me fairly certain that the thing you were chasing on the island – the thing you thought was your father – was really the smoke monster imitating him."

Jack took this in. "That's only marginally easier to believe than the possibility that my dead father was walking on the island." He looked at John. "You have any idea why it would do that?"

"You nearly fell off a cliff chasing it," Locke reminded him.

"It also led me to the caves where we found the water," Jack pointed out.

Locke considered this. "I'm willing to at least consider the possibility that it's intention were not wholly evil. But the monster was on the island for a very long time, Jack. As long as Jacob had been, It was definitely capable of playing a very long game. Hell, that's probably the reason it first appeared to me as something beautiful. To try and win me over to its side."

"You think it knew who you were before you came to the island, too?" This was an even scarier concept than some benevolent deity on an island calling boats and planes to play some kind of chess match.

"I don't know, Kate," Locke said quietly. "All I can say with certainty is that I'm glad I never came face to face with him. I have a feeling it wouldn't have ended well. For anybody."


	12. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

**SEATTLE **

"Well, I understand why you were so quiet about your plans this weekend," Izzie Stevens told Jack.

After the weekend had ended, the Seattle contingent of the Oceanics had made their plans about who was going to tell who about Locke's reemergence. In the end, there hadn't been any real surprises – Jack had decided to tell Alex and Izzie, Juliet would tell Rachel, and Hurley would tell Callie. It was only slightly less surprising that each had decided not to do it alone. James would join his fiancé, Claire, after some discussion, would talk with Hugo, and Kate would join her husband.

It was slightly surprising that Kate had become friendly with so many of the residents at Seattle Grace, but only slightly. Kate was closer in age to them than Jack was, and she had featured prominently in the stories ab0ut the island that Alex and Izzie had known her pretty well by the time she had met them at their wedding. Her one condition had been that whenever possible they should meet outside the hospital, and neither intern had put up much of an argument. During Stevens' treatment, both she and her husband had gotten fairly sick of them. None of their fellow residents had objected that much when they had both announced they were taking the remainder of the year off.

"Given everything that happened, I'm still surprised you didn't punch the guy in the face," Alex said.

"And if it had been maybe even a few months earlier, I might have done it," Jack admitted. "I may have been all for hearing him out, but I was almost positive that the first words out of his mouth were going to be something along the lines of 'The island needs us and we have to go back.'"

"You can understand why I was so reluctant to agree to listen," Kate told them. "Hell, I was shocked when Jack argued in _favor _of hearing John out. "

"But that's not on his mind at all," Izzie said.

"Iz, if he really wanted to go back to the island, I seriously doubt he would've risked everything to come back, even for the woman he loved," Alex said quietly. "Based on everything you told us, that guy had a major hard-on for that place."

Both Jack and Kate winced at the term. "Not wild about your phrasing, but I can't really argue with the concept behind it," Jack said quietly.

"One of the real questions I would've asked him was if he'd ever loved anybody," Kate admitted. "But he pretty much answered that when he told Walt about it."

"I gotta ask, you don't think it was really creepy the first one he talked to of all you was a twelve-year old?" Alex asked.

"Honestly, no," Jack said. "Mainly because he always talked to Walt like he was talking to an equal, or at least an adult. Of all of us, Walt was the one who probably got along with the best."

"Except maybe Charlie," Kate reminded him.

"Or you," Jack said softly. "You were pretty good at handling him through all those trips in the jungle."

"Except the last one." One of the things Kate had done when she had met Alex and Izzie was fill them in on a lot of the blanks that Jack hadn't known about. The 'rescue' mission had been one of the first.

"Bottom line for us, Jack"Izzie said slowly. "He really has no interest in going back to the island. At all."

"His exact words: 'Even if I wanted to bring you back, it's not possible'" Kate told them. "I expected to hear those words from John Locke as much as you guys did."

Izzie and Alex looked at each other. "Then I guess the next question is: 'What the hell happened to him the past year and a half?" Izzie asked.

"Followed closely by, how the hell did he get back?" Alex countered.

"We're still trying to get an answer to the last part," Jack admitted. "As for your first question, well, like everything else about that island, it's complicated. But we can fill in some of the blanks."

"Good," Alex told them. "Cause, nothing personal, but I got a feeling you guys left a shitload out."

"Starting with the major question," Izzie said quietly. "Was that really your father you saw on the island, or just a mirage?"

Somehow, Jack wasn't entirely shocked that this question was the first one to come to Izzie, considering how he'd ended up telling her this story in the first place. Even now that he actually had an answer, he had a feeling it wasn't going to be one she wanted to hear.

"We saw a lot of things on that island that didn't make sense," Kate spoke up. "About a week after we opened the hatch, I saw this black horse that looked really familiar to me."

This was frankly news to Jack. "Why?"

In as succinct a manner as she could manage, Kate explained how she had managed to get away from the marshal in the first place – the black horse that had just appeared on the road, causing the car crash where she had started running and never stopped until she got to the island.

Alex took this in. "You're not telling me that was the same horse?"

"It wasn't a hallucination. Sawyer- James saw it too." Kate said quickly. "And _he _thought it was a hallucination."

"The guy was recovering from a near lethal infection. I can hardly blame him," Jack told them. "As to your question, no I don't think it was the same horse. I do, however, think there is a possibility that it was from the same source that took the form of my father."

Now both the residents were starting to look puzzled. "I've followed most of what you've told us," Izzie said gently, "but I'm beginning to think this is where you've lost the narrative thread."

Now Jack and Kate exchanged a glance. "This is where we cross the point where you might start doubting our collective sanity," Kate finally said.

The puzzlement on Izzie and Alex's faces was now becoming out and out confusion. "You started your tale with a monster that turned out to be made of smoke, you have a button that if you don't push could it end the world, you've got whispering voices in the jungle, and a bunch of natives who seem to be living in a village with color TV." Alex said slowly. "You passed rational about three exits back."

"We're not saying you're lying," Izzie said quickly. "You wouldn't have carried this around for two years if it wasn't true. We're not at this point going to say this is impossible to believe."

"You may end up regretting that statement," Jack said as calmly as he could manage. "I know Locke is telling the truth, and even given everything we saw, we're all still grappling with what he's telling us."

Kate nodded. "No one else is going to learn about this outside the immediate circle. Hurley will tell Callie, but that's as far as we go. No matter what we end up telling the rest of Seattle Grace, this part doesn't leave this room."

"Jack, you're the one who was pissed at all the secrets that me and my friends were keeping, remember?" Izzie said gently.

"This isn't gossip about whose sleeping with whom," Jack told them.

"You're starting to scare me a little, "Izzie said honestly.

Jack took a deep breath, and decided to do part of the legend. He counted to five. "I'm going to start by telling you what maybe the fifth or sixth craziest thing we learned from John's story. Once we tell it to you, you'll get a picture as to why we're so reluctant to share this, even with people we care about and trust."

Izzie and Alex just nodded.

"The thing that was taking the form of my father may have been an incarnation of what we called the monster," he said slowly.

The residents processed this for a moment. "Are you telling us that thing that chased you around the island for three months was human?" Alex finally said.

They were taking this better than he thought. "Human may be a strong word," Jack said quietly. "Now bear in mind this is third-hand information. We got it from John who got it from another guy."

"One of the natives?" Izzie asked.

Jack was so relieved that they hadn't asked which native. He really didn't want to get into a discussion about immortality yet. "John says it's an unimpeachable source," he said quietly.

"But you told us that the Others did nothing but lie to you," Izzie said.

This was actually going a bit better than Jack would've thought it would.

"In their defense, we weren't particularly honest ourselves," Kate admitted. "And they were Ben's people. They tended to take their cues from the top down."

"But this guy had been on the island longer," Alex stated.

"Much longer," Jack said firmly. "And he was certain that this person – if you could call him that – was connected to the monster in some way."

"What was this person?"

Jack and Kate looked at each other. "He never got a name," Jack finally said. "But based on what little we know, you may have been righter than you knew in something you said when I started telling you this story."

Izzie leaned forward. "Which is?"

"There was a Hobbes on the island."

**LLLLL**

Hurley had told Callie a little quicker about John Locke's return, but had been a little more circumspect – for him – about an issue that was causing him some difficulty.

"You never cared how religious I was before, Hugo," Callie told him, a little puzzled.

"And I really don't. But depending on how much you believe in – well, let's just say a higher power – what we have to tell you may affect that."

Callie considered that. "I've never been much of a Catholic," she said quietly. "My father was never wild about that – he's kind of like your mother in that respect – but he was willing to let me lead my own life. I don't think a lot of doctors – and certainly not most of the people at Seattle Grace – believe in much of anything, and while I don't think I'd be that in line with them, it's hard to see what we do every day and still believe in God."

"That would explain why my brother had so much trouble with the idea of fate," Claire said quietly.

"And why he clashed with John so much," Hurley said slowly.

"I know you believed in things like curses, at least as far as the numbers went," Callie said carefully, "but I still don't know whether that even matches up with the idea of believe in something bigger."

"When I met Martha Toomey, she went out of her way to tell me 'You make your own luck'," Hurley said. "When I saw the numbers on Rousseau's drawings and again on the hatch, I was pretty damn sure that there was some evil spirit out there, and it had followed me all the way to the island. I had a change of heart when I found that van in the jungle and when it started rather than crash into those rocks, I really thought that I could make my own luck." He looked at Callie. "I'm not entirely sure how 'luck' matches up with anything like, you know, God, but for awhile, I really thought that there you could pick your own path in life. Considering what I later learned about the other survivors, I've been less sure since then."

Callie looked at Claire. "I'm guessing considering how you ended up on the plane in the first place, you felt the same way even before you got to the island."

"I don't know whether you call what I believed in spirituality or just being a bit balmy," Claire said confidently. "I'm pretty sure something wanted Aaron and me on that island. Now what higher power would want me to be abducted and experimented on, give birth in the middle of a jungle, and have to raise an infant with no nappies or baby clothes, I really don't know."

"Kate must've been a hell of a birthing coach," Callie said admiringly.

"Probably didn't make up for not having an epidural." It said a lot for where they were now that Claire was able to joke about the experience.

"You've all more or less that there was something strange about the island, and that John stood alone when he kept saying that it was a miraculous place," Callie told him. "Does he still think that way?"

"That's the weirdest thing about him," Hurley said. "All the time we were on the island, he kept acting like he was like some kind of fanatic. He didn't seem quite connected with reality, and I think that's why nobody – not even me, who can be friendly with anybody – ever really connected with him for long. The only person who ever seemed to follow him was Boone, and he died as a result of something John did. Other than that, he didn't really seem interested in leading or following."

"That's not entirely true, Hurley," Claire said. "He was following the island."

"And he's not like that any more?"

Hurley and Claire looked at each other. "You got along with him better than I did," Hurley finally said. "Maybe you can explain it."

Claire thought for a few seconds. "John was always nice to me. He led the initial search team to try and save me. He built Aaron's cradle, and after Aaron was born and I was having problems with Charlie, he tried to be both mine and Aaron's protector. There was a really warm and good person in him that always kept getting blocked by his obsessions – with the hatch, with the button, and then finally whatever path he thought he was trying to follow. The last couple of days when we talked with him, he seems to be the man I knew."

"He doesn't care about the island any more?" Callie was still confused.

"No, he cares about it. It's just not driving him any more," Claire said slowly. "I once heard the story of Saul riding to Damascus and the scales falling from his eyes. It's like that with John now. Only his scales were the island."

Callie shook her head. "Based on everything you and your friends have told me about him, Locke didn't seem to be the kind of man who would give it all up for love."

"In his defense, we didn't know anything about his history on the island," Hurley said slowly. "And he didn't know anything of ours. He still hasn't told us how he met Helen, or exactly why they broke up in the first place. But if he's like the rest of us, his obsessions got in the way."

Callie knew about Jack's failed relationships pre-crash, as well as the backstories behind everybody else, even those she hadn't met yet. "What about the rest of you?" she said slowly. "What do you believe it?"

Claire gave a small smile. "You've known most of us for awhile. You must have some theories."

Callie gave it some thought. "Well, some of you believe in a higher power, but most of them I'll never meet, except Desmond. Eko, Charlie, your friend Rose who never came back – they believed in God. Jack doesn't really believe, but he's starting to think there might be something to it. Kate and James don't really believe. I assume Sayid believes in God, but that's different than believing in destiny."

Hurley thought for a second. "Well Sayid's a good Muslim. I definitely saw him pray a lot when we were on the island, even found a rug to unroll for it sometimes. But he always had a hard time believing in fate, on the island or off."

"Given everything that happened to him while he was in Iraq or traveling the world, that's not hard to understand," Claire said quietly.

"What about Jin and Sun?" Callie asked.

"I'm honestly not sure," Hurley said thoughtfully. "Given everything that happened in their lives, and their love story is so complicated, it makes Meredith's and McDreamy's seem positive easy to follow, it's hard to say. The island helped them find each other again, but they never thought to think that the island was responsible for that."

"Considering how many people died just for them to get there," Claire said solemnly, "they've done bad things in their lives, but they are not that single-minded even at their worst."

"You're going to have to tell me what they went through in Seoul someday," Callie pointed out.

"_They're _going to have to tell you," Hurley corrected. "It's their business, and I'm not going to spill it. Did enough of that on the island as it was."

"Fair enough," Callie admitted. "So if Locke came back to civilization, what did he see that convinced him to give up his obsession?"

Hurley looked at Claire, almost pleading. But he'd gotten to know her well enough to read her expression very well. "Remember how Juliet said that all the Others seemed to take their orders from a man called Jacob?"

"Someone no one but Ben spoke to, and nobody had ever seen," Callie nodded. "She thought Ben was full of shit."

"Well, he was," Hurley said slowly. "But not about this."

Very carefully, they started to relay what John had told them over the weekend. They knew, even given everything she'd said just a week earlier, they would have a hard time convincing her that they weren't as crazy as they thought John had been.

They stopped after reaching the point where Ben and John had reached the Temple. Callie had been silent until then, and as this point, Hurley wanted to be sure that this frankly bizarre story hadn't broken his girlfriend somehow.

"So, you're telling me that there's some kind of paranormal deity on this island and he seems to demand absolutely loyalty and grants nothing for it except some kind of promise of a better life," Callie said slowly. "Well, that's pretty close to the God my parents tried to get me to believe in when I was growing up."

"John is pretty sure that, whatever this guy is, he's not God," Hurley hastened to say.

"Yeah, but all of the people who were on that island pretty much acted as if he was," Callie thought for a minute. "You sure this isn't some kind of, like, cargo cult or something?"

Hurley looked blank at this, but Claire clearly understood. "I don't think the line of reasoning comes out the exact same way," she told her. "Whoever this Jacob is, he was already on the island. By the logic you're speaking of, they'd have been more likely to treat me and my friends like we were part of that cult. I can assure you they didn't do that to us. Certainly not to me."

The glazed look that had been on Callie's face the last few minutes cleared up a little.

"I don't know much about the whole, you know, 'cargo' part, but those guys definitely acted like they were in some kind of cult," Hurley said assuredly. "And Locke spent most of his time on the island trying to join that cult, while we were all trying to get the hell off of it."

"I get that much," Callie admitted. "And given what Jack and Juliet in particular have told me about the 'Others' – I'll be honest, couldn't you have come up with a better name?"

"It was Rousseau's, "Claire said softly. "She had ownership of it, and it didn't seem fair to take it from her."

"Fair enough," Callie got back to her point. "They definitely seemed like they were completely spaced on the idea of the island and it does seem like Locke wanted to be on it. So how did he get deprogrammed?"

"It's still not entirely clear," Hurley admitted, "but it really seems like he was having doubts about the Others did things not that long after he joined up. That stuff with the children, the ones that Ana Lucia and Libby were so desperate to find, that shook him pretty hard."

"We really did try to find them," Claire said sadly. "We waited till the last possible minute, but by then the Others pretty much had them under their thumb. From what John told us, they were pretty much brainwashed by them."

"Of all the things you've told me about that place, that's the hardest to believe," Callie said.

"Jack saw them the week he spent with the Others," Hurley said just as sadly. "They kept him pretty secluded in the Barracks, but he ran into the girl – Emma – and she was playing stick and ball with Cindy. Asked her in a roundabout way, how she was doing. She asked her what had happened to Ana Lucia. Jack couldn't work up the nerve to tell her she was dead. Anyway, he mentioned that he'd be leaving soon. "

Hurley looked straight ahead. "Emma got these big eyes, and asked why he'd want to leave. Jack was floored by the question, and said: 'I'm going home. Do you want to come with me?' Emma just looked at him, and said: 'I am home.'

"This gutted Jack, and he walked away before he was about to cry."

"I can hardly blame him." Indeed, Callie sounded a little tearful herself. "And they'd been with the Others, what, a month, six weeks?"

"Probably less." Claire said sadly. "Juliet had her own doubts about the children needing to be taken as well. She actually brought it up to Ben once. She said they kept asking when they would see their parents again. And Ben said: 'Give them time. They'll stop asking. She didn't believe him at the time. She still doesn't know what that monster did to them."

"I'm beginning to wish the police had caught up with him when he came to the hospital," Callie was starting to sound angry now. "I know this would have caused no end of problems for you guys, and I'm not sure what you could've held him on, but still…"

"Trust me when I tell you this," Hurley said solemnly. "For that man, the worst place he can possibly be is off the island. As long as that stays the same, I think that's punishment enough."

"All right, so there's this Jacob, did John ever meet him?"

Hurley and Claire exchanged glances. "Actually, he hasn't gotten that far in to his story yet."

"How far did he get?" Callie asked.

"Whatever war is or was going on between Widmore and Ben," Hurley told her. "The one that we just managed to avoid."

"How much has Penny managed to tell you about?" Callie asked.

"As much as she knew, which was less than we hoped,"

They'd given most of the details about the Widmores when they trusted Callie with their secrets. Callie had only met Penny at the wedding, and it hadn't seemed the right time to ask her about her father – considering that she'd just helped put him in prison for the rest of his life.

"But Locke was able to fill in some of the blanks about Charles Widmore," Hurley then told her what Richard had relayed about this mysterious man., which understandably raised even more questions that none of them could answer.

"So he got recruited when he was very young," Callie said slowly. "How did he end up on the island's radar in the first place?"

"No idea," Hurley admitted. "The only thing we know for sure is that he chose to come to the island. "

"You told me this island doesn't appear on any map," Callie told them.

"It might," Claire spoke up. "But since none of us have any particular reason to want to find it again, we're not exactly looking that hard."

"As Ma would say, amen to that," Hurley admitted. "But there must be some way to find it that we don't know about. The Dharma Initiative clearly did. Why not someone else some other way?"

"And you think that's how he tracked it down again."

"Yeah, but based on what Penny told us, it took him nearly twenty years and a huge amount of time and energy," Claire said. "She's still not sure how he managed to find it."

"I'm guessing it had nothing to do with the sky turning purple," Callie asked.

"My girlfriend really is the smart one in this relationship," Hurley said proudly. "Probably not, but the guy had been planning it for awhile. It may have had something to do with an earlier incident."

Callie did a double take. "I admit I'm a little new to this, but you think somehow Widmore knew what was going to happen to your plane?"

There was no good way t0 answer that the question. Claire finally tried. "Widmore's foundation was sponsoring a race around the world. Penny's not certain, but she's pretty sure that the whole reason for that race was to see if someone managed to discover the island by accident. When she was going through his records, she found out he buried three disappearances during that races. Missing people whose families he paid off."

"Not to mention that the balloon that we found – the one that the real Henry Gale was flying – was sponsored by Widmore's foundation." Hurley told him. "Sayid said there was a trademark on it he recognized when we got back to the mainland."

"He knew Desmond getting shipwrecked was a possible consequence," Claire said. "In fact, Des thinks he was counting on it."

"So to answer your question, I don't know what Widmore knew." Hurley hesitated. "But considering what we learned and what his daughter told us, nothing that man did could shock us."

"So Widmore's in jail, Ben's not going to be a factor anymore, and John says he basically came back because the island is safe," Callie summarized. "Forgive me, but there are still a lot of holes in this story."

"And when Locke fills in the rest of them, we'll tell you," Hurley assured her. "But I gotta remind you, we were there at the beginning, and we still don't understand everything that was going on."

"Given everything that you've told me, 'the beginning' is a pretty loose term," Callie reminded them. "And if what you're driving at is true, the real beginning may have been a very, very long time ago."

Both Hurley and Claire would have cause to remember this over the next few weeks.

LOS ANGELES

Just as the group of Oceanics who lived in Seattle tried to get together every couple of days, so too did the ones who were still in LA. If anything, it was a lot easier as most of them either controlled their own jobs or were in a position to easily take time off. Everyone had thought it would be a little strange when Locke had come back to try and schedule another of these meeting, which was why they were all a little stunned when he and Helen invited the LA contingent to their house in Tustin for lunch three days after the whole group had gotten together.

To say that they were all floored was an understatement – even given his attitude over the weekend, old impression died hard, and most of them remembered the John Locke who had always been a loner. Sun and Jin could only remember interacting with them once their entire time on the island, and Sayid was still smarting a little about Locke's betrayal despite his profuse apologies.

Paradoxically, Michael figured that it was best if they gave him a chance. "Locke reached out to us, remember? And he's said over and over that he has no interest in returning to the island? Not to mention all the things he told us. I think he's earned it."

Sayid hemmed and hawed, but when Locke said it was alright to bring Nadia with him, he gave in.

Helen greeted them at the door. "It's a pleasure to meet all of you under better circumstances," she said kindly, and warmly shook everybody's hands.

After she invited them in, Walt looked around. "Where's Mr. Locke?"

"He's getting the barbecue started. I hope you all like boar!"

The look of genuine horror that crossed all of their faces must have clear to all of them. Until John stepped out. "I just wanted to see the look on your faces," he said with a smile. "Helen's doing the cooking and she's has a far bigger repertoire than I ever did."

John Locke had finally developed a sense of humor about his time on the island. This more than anything else convinced them the man had seen the light. Sayid even managed to laugh at the joke.

As they all gathered around the backyard, Locke took a long look at Nadia.

"Why are you staring at my wife?" Sayid said, only half in jest.

"Forgive me. " Locke turned back to Nadia. "How long have you lived in America?"

"Since 1999." Nadia was looking at John the same way. "I have lived in California for awhile, but I don't think it's possible we've met."

"Maybe it's just from the media coverage," John seemed to have shaken it off. "I looked at a lot of media clipping before I came back."

"Perhaps," Nadia looked a little philosophical. "But Sayid's told me about the connections so many of his friends had before they got on the plane. I had trouble believing it until I realized I was one of them."

Michael, who'd been a little behind in some of these discussions, was a little perplexed. "Who did you know?"

Nadia took a deep breath. "In the fall of 1997, I was living in London. I was walking through Covent Garden, when a man stuck a knife to my throat, took my purse, and then tried to beat me up. Three people either heard me scream or saw me and did nothing. Then this young man - a street husker – heard my cries, grabbed the attacker, and pulled him off me. He made sure I was all right, bought me a cuppa to make and stayed with me."

Locke knew who it was as soon as Nadia had mentioned London. "You knew Charlie," he said with a wistful smile.

"I didn't know he was on the plane until the tributes to DriveShaft came in," Nadia said softly. "Sayid tells him you were closest to him on the island."

"It was a complicated relationship," Locke said in quiet understatement. "I may have been more invested in his recovery than even he knew. I have many regrets about how I did things on the island, but one of the biggest is that I never said goodbye to him. He died a hero, and I did so much to try and undo his last actions."

"It's not like you tried that hard, John," That this statement came from Michael, of all people, meant a lot. "

"I didn't arrange for anything that complicated," Locke said slowly, changing the subject. "Cold cuts, sandwiches, that sort of thing. I don't think I appreciated bread until I got back to civilization."

"I never realized how great PB & J was until I was in America," Walt told him.

Everybody settled in. Jin spoke up first. "It's not that we don't appreciate the invitation, John," he said in the same way he had used when he was first learning English.

"You're still wondering if I have a hidden agenda," Locke finished. "Not that I blame you. It's going to take more than one weekend of revelations for me to earn all of your trust back." He hesitated. "And let's be honest, I never had that much in the bank to begin with."

There was the slightest bit of relaxation from everybody. "That's actually part of why I invited you here to begin with." Locke said cheerfully. ""Most of the people in Seattle I had a pretty solid relationship with before I blew it all to hell. But either I never made an effort to learn much about the rest of you either because of factors beyond my control" He looked at Jin and Sun, "or because of personal issues. "

Michael had the good grace to acknowledge this. "I was still learning to be a father," he told John. "Something that I never really got a chance to do when he was a child. So when a total stranger started having a better relationship with Walt than I was, I took it really badly. I guess you could say I had major trust issues myself."

"I never held that against you, Michael," Locke said. "And for the record, I think you did the best you could under conditions none of us could imagine."

"I did some horrible things," Michael said.

"None of us have clean hands, Michael," Sayid said gently.

Michael actually brushed a tear back at that.

"And if what you tell me is true, it's because we didn't talk to each other," Locke raised his hands. "Well, we've got time to do it now. So, let's have lunch together."

And with that, they went to the table and had a pleasant meal together.

John wisely didn't pry that much into the darker edges that so many of them had dealt with. He didn't have to. Everybody had been sharing their dirty linen for the last year and a half with each other, and they were more than willing to tell them about what had happened in their pasts.

Sun and Jin, acting in concert, told John about how they had met almost by fate, their courtship and their marriage – including the ugly parts. Sayid told about some of his problems as a child – how his father had been a hard man, and how he had learned in the First Gulf War, the true nature of the darkness inside him. Michael told the story of how he and Susan had met, but never married, and how she had step by step, done everything in her power to make sure that his son never even knew he existed. John had expected Walt to raise some kind of objections to this, but strangely enough, he didn't. Maybe he was coming to accept something that had been wrong with his mother as well.

After a bit, Nadia who had been mostly quiet throughout the conversation spoke up. "You said that there was something else you wanted to talk about, John."

It took all of them a few moments to process what they were seeing. John Locke was blushing a little. He turned to his wife. "I think we can tell them now, Helen."

"This is more of a long term project," Helen said quietly. "We've got a lot of things to work through to get there. But, when all of the craziness has passed, John and I are considering being foster parents."

The reaction this time was much more favorable. "To quote a friend of ours, that's awesome," Walt said cheerfully.

"I know better than most how difficult it can be to grow up in a house without love," Locke said. "If Helen and I had gotten married before, I would have asked her if we could've have done it, even if we had children of our own. Now, I want to do it more than ever."

Walt was a little puzzled. "So why did you ask just us?"

"Because he wanted to get approval from the mommies and daddies in the group," Sun said knowingly. She looked at Nadia. "Or soon-to-be parents."

Sayid actually looked a little bashful himself at this reference, which was a first for them as well. "You'd be asking the wrong person. I still need a lot of convincing from Nadia that I'll be a good father."

"Really?" Locke said softly. "'Because just based on what I knew about you from the island, the only person who has any doubt that you'd make a good father is you."

Now Sayid looked down. "Well, you certainly have the instincts of a good father," he said with a shyness that was utterly foreign to his friends. "At the very least, your experience has taught you what not to do."

"Based on what I know about the rest of us growing up," Michael said. "That could be said of just about everybody on that plane."

Jin spoke up. "My father is a good man," he said in his careful English. "Based on everything I heard, he may have been the only decent father any of us had. "

"Juliet's parents were nice people," Sun said. "So when they got divorced when she was nine, it really messed with her head. That's another story, though. However, with those exceptions, my husband is right. We've tried to be good parents to Ji Yeon by learning from my father-in-law's example. And thank goodness she has enough aunts and uncles that have learned from their parent's mistakes as well."

"It's not easy being a parent," Michael admitted. "And hell, I really doubted that I could do it when I came to Sydney. I sure as hell made every mistake possible when we were on the island, and even more when we got to dry land. " He looked down at Walt. "But it is true what they say about blood being thicker than water. And I intend to spend the rest of my life making up for every mistake I made. I guess what I'm saying is, you were a better father than I was to my son on the island than I was."

"I never treated Walt that way," Locke reminded him. "I treated him as an equal."

"And maybe I should've tried the same thing," Michael admitted. "'Cause my approach barely worked."

Walt took his father's hand. "I'm sorry about what I said at the airport, Dad," he said calmly.

Michael was puzzled for more than a minute, then his face cleared. "You had every reason to say it back then," he admitted. "But of all the things that happened in between then and now, that's the least of our issues."

"Does this assuage your doubts, John?" Sayid asked.

"Not a hundred percent," Locke admitted. "I may be a man of faith, but that doesn't mean I don't know about science. And the fact is, as much as I want to deny it I'm Anthony Cooper's son. The fact that this child won't have my genes doesn't make me any less afraid of that."

"Every parent has doubts," Jin assured him. "The fact that you're admitting to them is a good sign into itself."

"And consider this," Michael told him. "If ninety percent of success is just showing up, you're already light years of your own parents."

"And you have a partner," Nadia said. "That's even better."

"Come on, John," Helen said. "That's why they call it a leap of faith."

Locke gave a genuine grin. "As long as you grab my hand before we jump, I think we'll be fine."

"Well, now that we've dealt with the parenting issues, sure we can't convince you to give us some more secrets from the island?" Sun asked.

"Just a few more days," Locke said enigmatically. "This time we all learn together."


	13. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

Locke heaved a big sigh. "I think I have been avoiding it long enough," he began slowly.

To say that the group of survivors was perplexed was an understatement. It had been three weeks since they reunited with John, and he had been very open with what had happened on the island since they had left. He had told them how he had set up leadership at the Temple, and had been establishing his leadership of 'his people' as he was calling them. He had told them of the trial of Ben Linus, and how he had sentenced him to exile after nearly ten days of thinking. They supplied the Elizabeth, given him an appropriate bearing, and basically sent him away. He'd told them how he learned that while the Dharma Initiative was dead, there was a still a location in Guam that was responsible for yearly 'pallet drops' of supplies – that had been what the survivors had found the night Sayid had revealed that Henry Gale was a fraud. And he had told them that there was something called 'an exit' in Tunisia where people could leave the island.

"What are you talking about, John?" Jack asked for the group.

"I'm not saying nothing that I've told you the past few meetings isn't important. But the truth is, all of these stories are in comparison, small potatoes to the questions I'm sure all of you have been asking since I told you about Richard's meeting with Jacob."

This time, Sayid spoke for them all. "It was a lot to take in, John."

Hurley shook his head. "I'm still not sure how to tell Callie about it."

"Even for someone who believes so much in destiny, it was a lot for me to deal with, too" John admitted. "And as much as I wanted to meet with Jacob, and get some answers to my questions, even then I had to admit I wasn't nearly ready for it. I mean, how do you arrange for a meeting with someone who might as well be God?"

Juliet was thoughtful. "Richard never asked questions, either."

"The man had patience," Locke said. "But I'll be honest. I didn't want to have to wait a century or even the thirty years Ben did to get answers from this man."

"Why'd you bother waiting in the first place?" James asked. "Saint Richard basically told you where the guy was living. Why not just march down to the giant foot and pull him out?"

"The thought crossed my mind once or twice, James," Locke admitted. "The truth is, I was terrified of what he might tell me. But he must've known I was waiting for answers. Because eventually he sent me a message."

**WHOOOOSH**

March 11, 2005

"How long ago did you come to the island?" Locke asked Dogen.

Dogen wasn't really comfortable around anybody, but after Richard had entrusted him with a few secrets, he had very gradually given some details about the island to John.

"I was a successful businessman," he began quietly. "I had just received a promotion." He paused. "I had too much to drink." He looked around, his eyes focusing on a baseball on his desk. "I forgot to pick up my son at Little League. There was an accident."

Locke thought he knew the end of this story.

"At the hospital, a man showed up. He offered me a bargain. He would save my son's life. But I could never see him again. I think you know who that man was. That was eight years ago."

Locke shook his head. "You'll forgive my saying this," he began quietly, "but why does everybody just do what Jacob says? Yes, this is a sacred place, and yes, it needs to be protected, but why must the cost always be so high? It cost you your son, it cost Richard any chance at happiness, and its cost so many lives. And the rewards, they don't seem to be enough compensation. I'm almost starting to feel sympathy for Ben."

For the first time, Dogen was looking melancholy. "I wish I could give you the answers you seek, John," he said in a soft voice that he never shared with outsiders. "But the sad truth is those of us on the island, I think we're still looking for them. We know there is a higher plan here – you know as well as we do how special it is – but we are never given the truth. Only fragments of the whole."

There was something in Dogen's voice that John didn't quite recognize. "Am I about to get one of those fragments?"

Dogen didn't answer directly. Instead, he took out a piece of parchment, and handed it to John. "At dawn tomorrow, leave this place, and follow the direction that are on this paper. I believe when you get there, you will get an answer to at least one of the questions that has been troubling your mind ever since you came here."

John took the paper. "Why do you only believe it and not know it?"

Dogen didn't answer for a couple of minutes. John was about to leave when Dogen finally answered.

"Because I've been where these directions lead. There's nothing there."

**WHOOOSH**

"What was he talking about?" Jack asked.

"I didn't understand at the time," Locke began slowly. "But like I did almost every time I was told, I decided to follow the path. I just didn't think it was going to be so literal this time."

"The next morning I followed the directions. And it was even more maze-like than so many of the other paths on the island. In this case, it led me through the jungle for a couple of miles, and into the caves that many of us made home the first month we were on the island."

Hurley raised a hand. "You ever find out who those two skeletons belonged to?"

Locke shook his head. "No one knew. This was one island mystery that I don't think anybody had a solution to. Anyway, after I filled my canteen at the lake – for sentimental reasons more than anything else - I walked for nearly three miles at a bearing of 240 degrees." He hesitated. "And then I saw it."

"Saw what?" Kate asked.

Locke had that distant look of memory. "A lighthouse."

There was a very long moment of silence as this sunk in. Sayid spoke up first. "John, I mapped the island very thoroughly. And we all explored every inch of it. There was no lighthouse on the island."

"I was there for three years, John," Juliet began

"I am well aware of that fact," Locke told them seriously. "There was no way any of us could have lived on that island for a protracted period of time, and not seen it. Particularly something like this."

Jack, surprisingly, withheld judgment. "What was it like?"

"It was at least eighty feet high. There were at least five tiers to it. And it was _ancient. _It looked like it might have been built in the period of Ancient Egypt, maybe even older." Locke looked at them. "But I think there was a reason that nobody saw it. Not us, not the Others, maybe no one who ever came to the island. Because when I got inside, it became very clear that it hadn't been used for navigational purposes in a very, _very _long time."

"What was it used for?" Kate finally asked.

"There was a door made out of bronze. I honestly didn't think it would open when I got to it, but I barely had to push. " Locke hesitated. "And I'll tell you something. Part of me hoped it wouldn't open. I thought something might be inside that would absolutely shatter me. But I knew I couldn't just walk away. This place might not be here when I came back."

"I walked up, five flights of stairs. Part of me wondered if this was where I was finally going to meet Jacob, that he might finally reveal to me what my destiny truly was. I'm not sure whether that propelled me forward or held me back."

"Finally, I reached the top level. I was alone. Just like I felt when I got inside the Swan, I was sorely disappointed. It seemed to be 'just' a lighthouse, albeit one old enough that it might have been one of the first ever built. There was a terrace which had a view of all directions. An ancient telescope. There was a huge wooden wheel that was under a large brazier bowl, that must have held fire at some point. There were mirrors around the surface at least five feet tall, and a pulley and gear system."

"It took me at least five minutes to gain my strength from the trek and the long climb, and I was feeling even more confused. Why was I sent here? What was the point of a lighthouse on an island that no one could find on any map? I walked a little closer to it." Locke paused for a period of time. "And then I did a double take. Even after everything I had seen, and everything I had been told, I couldn't process what I was seeing."

He took an even longer pause. "This is the part I really don't want to tell you," John finally said.

"Damn it John, you can't just come to the cliff and not jump," James said.

"We're off the island now," Locke said quietly. "In a very large sense, it doesn't matter any more what I saw. None of it can touch us. But knowing about it, that may very well haunt you for the rest of your days. It has certainly given me my share of nightmares, and I believed."

He was speaking to all of them, but it was Jack everybody was looking to, and they all knew it. "This was what you thought was going to be waiting when we blew the hatch, right?" Jack finally asked.

"You weren't there, but that ended with the world nearly imploding," Locke said. "Same thing happened here, but the explosions were all inward."

Jack took a long pause. "What was on the wheel, John?" he finally said.

Locke took a deep breath. "Every single degree was a numbered. And every single number had a name. It was hard to read a lot of them, because the lion's share had been crossed out, and from the looks of it, many had been crossed out a long time ago. But there were twenty two that I could read clearly."

"Whose were they?" Jack asked.

Locke swallowed. "Ours. I was right on top of it. My name was next to the number 4."

Hurley had just gone very still.

"On number 8 was Reyes." Locke looked at Hugo. "Then right on top of each other, were James and Sayid. 15 and 16." He took a deep breath and looked at Jack. "Yours was at number 23."

Hurley's blood felt like it had gone to ice. "And 42?"

"Kwon. I don't know which one you it was," he said to Jin and Sun. "So Hugo, you were right all along about those numbers being important. However, lest you think that those numbers and those alone were the most important ones, so were nearly everybody else. Kate was listed at number 51. Claire was number 313. Michael, you were there at number 140. We were brought to the island, but it was never just about the numbers."

Hurley wasn't sure whether this made him feel better or worse.

"And I also recognized some of the names that were crossed out. 31 was Rutherford. Shannon. 242 was Boone. 194 was Charlie. And 203 was Cortez. Ana Lucia."

Hurley had to know. "Was Libby-"He couldn't finish the sentence.

"There was a Smith. But that's a very common name, Hugo." Locke said. "There was also a Jones."

All of them were still trying to process this. It was one thing to know they seemed destined to be on the plane; it was another thing to know that plane was supposed to come to the island. But knowing that all of that had been prelude to something far larger than that – that this may have been a decision that was made before they even knew about it – well, this would have shaken the hell out of someone who didn't believe in free will.

"This may or may not make you feel much better," Locke said quietly. "But the names that were on that wheel weren't the only ones I recognized. "

Kate seemed to be the one more in control. "Who else was there?"

"Danielle was at number 20. And Montand, who was also on her team, he was there too. " Locke looked at them. "And I saw a few Others who were on the wheel."

Michael seemed to have gotten a hold of himself. "Which ones?"

"Ben. Stanhope, which was Harper's last name. Pryce, the guy who beat me to a pulp when he found me at the dock." He swallowed. "And yours."

Juliet's face had been growing gradually paler since John had mentioned Others, and when she heard that she had been picked by someone a long time ago, the normally prepossessed woman looked a lot like she was going to faint. "You're sure?"

"You were number 58." Locke genuinely sounded sorry. "I think that's really why Ben wouldn't let you leave the island."

Locke just let this sit for several minutes. He knew that this was a hell of a bombshell, and he was more than willing to let it simmer.

After a few minutes, he started speaking again. "I think it may well be worth mentioning that there were some names we all know very well that _weren't _on this wheel. I didn't see your name anywhere, Walt. You were special, but it's not because Jacob said so."

"I'm not sure how to take that, Mr. Locke," Walt, perhaps understandably, was handling this the best.

"I didn't see Richard's name anywhere, either. Or Widmore's. Or Desmond's. Hell, I didn't see Nadler, and both Rose and Bernard were never going to leave that island."

"After the shock wore off, I started to get confused. I could understand why we were there. But Desmond had come to this island against his will, and had been unable to leave no matter how hard he tried. Richard had been serving Jacob for nearly 140 years; had Jacob just drawn the Black Rock here for sport? None of this made any sense. So I decided to do something that made even less sense."

"Which was?" Hurley now sounded almost normal.

"I decided to move the wheels until it was positioned over my name." Locke paused. "And I did get answers. I was just even less happy with them."

Jack finally worked up the nerve to ask the obvious. "What'd you see?"

"Nothing at first. As I pulled on the rope, it just seemed to be an ordinary mirror. But then, I pulled it and I saw what looked like a pagoda. I kept pulling at I saw this church. Old and definitely Gothic. I couldn't make the connection. In hindsight," He looked around. "It may have only been for the names that hadn't been crossed off."

"And when you got to your name?" Kate asked with a gentleness she rarely used with John.

Locke looked like he was on the verge of tears. "It was the outside of the hospital that I'd spent in recovery after… he threw me out the window. I just looked at it for a very long time. I knew it what meant. I had been chosen. And it felt even worse than when I was thrown out the window."

"Why?" Now Jack was puzzled. "You were right. This proved everything you'd believed."

"It also meant that he'd watched me get thrown through an eight story window, and had done nothing to stop it. It meant that he'd watched my father do horrible things to me – made me lose Helen – and he'd let it happen. It meant that he'd watched every single horrible moment of life, and let me suffer, just so I would end up on the island." Locke said. "I believed in destiny, and destiny is fine as long as the higher power remains abstract. To know that he's been watching you all this time, maybe just pulling a string here or there to make sure that your path doesn't deviate." Locke thought about it for a moment. "I honestly think if Ben, the island's most loyal disciple had known about this place, he would have recoiled in horror. As for me, I just couldn't take it. I did something I had never done in all the time I'd been on the island. I ran. I don't even remember running down the stairs. All I wanted to do was get away from the lighthouse."

Jack walked up to John, and put his hand on his shoulder. "You're still more disciplined than I would've been. If it had been me, I'd have smashed the mirrors."

"And that's still more restraint than I'd have shown." James said acidly. "I'd have kept running until I found Jacob and punched him in the throat."

Locke gathered himself. "All valid responses," he told himself. "But I think you understand why I've been delaying in telling this part of the story. I know there were more people than me who believed in fate, but I'm pretty sure that with the exception of Desmond, everyone in this room was in the free will camp. And I really didn't want to tell you that all the choices you thought you made were never really choices at all."

"And he did that all of an island that no one could ever find," Sayid was understandably having trouble getting his head around this.

Locke shook his head. "He must have been able to leave the island somehow. There's no other way he could have gotten Dogen or so many of the Others on his side. There's no way he could have known to send Richard to come and recruit me before I was even old enough to make my own decisions. And as much as the Others would have you believe differently, the only way the Dharma people could have gotten to the island in the first place was if he let it happen somehow. He couldn't have called our plane to the island if he hadn't known that somehow we were all going to be on it."

"But no one was allowed to leave the island. " Kate said.

"I know that. But apparently, the rules didn't apply to Jacob." Locke heaved a frustrated sigh. "Which I suppose makes sense, because I'm pretty sure that he created the rules in the first place."

"How upset were you, John?" Hurley seemed to be changing the subject.

"I wasn't upset, Hugo." Locke said. "I was angry. And I'll tell you something I wasn't even going to tell the rest of the people. For the first time since I woke up on the beach and was able to walk, I hated the island."

That was, if anything, an even stranger thing to hear than everything Locke had just told them about the lighthouse. Sayid ended up reacting to this first. "Even after everything you've told us, that's the one thing I can't believe."

"I had doubts while you were there," Locke admitted. "After Boone died, when I learned who 'Henry' was, when I went to the Pearl station. But all those time, it was my own doubt that plagued me. This time, I really wondered about whether it was all worth it. After I came to the Pearl station with Eko, I thought the Swan was a maze with no cheese. When I came from the lighthouse, I thought my entire life had been a maze that someone else had designed, and the cheese wasn't worth all the dead ends. The island had given me a miracle. But the miracle is irrelevant if someone was responsible for making it necessary."

"Damn," James told him. "That's what's been different about you."

For a change, everybody was looking at James. "All that time on the island, your Buddha act. It was always there, even when you were trying to stay normal. Your soul is no longer in touch with the universe."

"That's a weird way of putting, James," Locke was smiling for the first time in a while. "But I spent six months on a commune in Bridgeport, so I get what you're trying to say."

"So what did you do afterwards?" Hurley asked.

"I did something that all of you should remember," Locke said. "I just stood there and looked out at the ocean. The first few days after the crash, it had given me peace. I thought it might do it now that I really needed it."

"Did it work?" Kate asked.

"I'm not sure how long I stood there. Maybe it was just a few minutes; maybe it was hours. And I wasn't calm. I was just… exhausted. Maybe I was hoping the island would send me a sign."

The last person who would have asked him this question on the island did now. "Did it, John?" Jack asked.

"I honestly don't know," Locke said. "But someone else did come."

**WHOOOSH**

"You know, it's a good thing I found you and not my husband."

It wasn't the last voice he had expected to ever hear, but it still gave John a hell of a shock.

"I mean, he was just doing this to help his friends," Rose said in that matter-of-fact way that John hadn't heard in so long. "We were never going to leave, so I guess for us, it was academic. But you're lucky you weren't there when we met in the jungle. He still had his shotgun."

Locke recovered his ability to speak. "Rose? Where have you been all this time?"

"Nowhere special," Even after everything that had happened while they were there, Rose seemed absolutely unchanged. "After everybody else left, the Others have been leaving us alone. You didn't have anything to do with that, did you John?"

Locke was about to talk when he realized that he didn't know what to say. The last time he had seen Rose, he'd been throwing a knife into Naomi's back. He'd assumed that, just like the rest of the survivors, she'd decided to condemn him. But here she was, and she didn't seem to have changed a bit.

"A lot's happened in the last few months, Rose," he said quietly.

"Is it as bad as when you made the sky turn purple? You know, Bernard nearly got his head cut off by the hatch," Rose seemed really calm given all of the painful memories. "Why exactly did you stop pushing the button?"

He'd been so sure of himself when he'd told Desmond about it – God, was it only four months ago? – and somehow he didn't think just saying 'I was wrong' would cut it. "I didn't believe any more."

"In this place or yourself?"

For the first time all day, Locke found himself smiling. "You would have made a good psychiatrist," he said quietly. "Me. I think."

"Well, we all have those doubts occasionally. You wouldn't be human if you weren't," Rose looked at him. "You having those same doubts now?"

Locke nodded. "Times a thousand."

"Well, why don't you help me with the wash and maybe you can tell me about it."

"It's a long story."

Rose gave a knowing smile. "I've got a lot of laundry."

**WHOOOSH**

In the same way her presence had proved a calming influence to Locke on the island, just hearing about Rose made everybody feel better. No one had problem with Hurley, but Rose's faith had never been as maddening as Locke was. Her inner peace was something everyone admired, probably because they could never emulate it.

"How were they doing?" Hurley asked.

"After the rest of you left, she and Bernard had done what they were planning to do. Find a nice, quiet place out of the traffic of the island, and retire." Locke looked at Walt. "They were even taking care of Vincent."

Walt looked genuinely glad at that small revelation.

"I hadn't exactly given orders that they were to be untouched, " Locke continued, "but after hearing what Ben had wanted done to the ones left on the beach, I wanted it to be absolutely clear that no one who stayed behind was to be bothered. They didn't have a problem with that."

"So what did you tell them?" Kate asked.

"It took me awhile to get there. Mainly because she didn't want to know that much."

**WHOOOSH**

"You're really not interested?" Locke asked.

"I know this place healed me. That it's special," Rose said as she began to hang up the laundry. "Beyond that, what else do you need to know?"

"I've spent much of my time on this island feeling the same way," Locke admitted. "That I had a destiny, and that it was this island. But I've seen a lot the last few months, Rose, and I have to admit, it's shaken my belief."

"I'm not surprised," Rose said quietly. "It's easy to believe in God than it is to really know him. I had faith that I knew I was going to see Bernard again. Not because anybody told me, I'll see him two months after I survived a plane crash, but because I knew he was alive. You can't let yourself get obsessed about the details, John."

"I'm pretty sure all of our friends would've felt very differently," John said.

"And that was their right. They didn't see this place the way you and I do." Rose turned at looked at John. "When I told Bernard, he understood in an instant. Because I was his world, and he is mine. But the rest of them, they never got how special it was. All they saw was how strange it is. And when you live in the world we do, when we can't accept what we're seeing unless we can explain it, then its scary. Add in the fact that most of them had a reason to want to go home. My reason was on the plane was with me. Once we were together again, I didn't need anything else."

Locke looked at Rose. "My reason has always been this island, Rose. That this place needs to be protected."

"And you did some pretty shameful things in the name of protecting it," Rose said matter-of-factly. "Oh, I won't judge you, John – I figure you've had enough of that from everybody else – but still, you made the same mistake everybody else did."

John waited.

"You didn't tell anybody what you were before," Rose said. "Oh, I can't exactly judge either – I never told anybody else what was wrong with me and why it was right here - but you never shared. In case you hadn't noticed, every time things worked on the island, they worked when we were together."

Locke gave a small smile. "I guess you heard Jack's speech."

"He had his flaws too, but he tried. You know, the two of you were more alike then you knew. Probably why you didn't get along." Rose looked at him. "The difference was, he believed in letting others help. You, you were always off on your own. Hunting boar, trying to open the hatch, pressing the button. You never seemed to care about what the rest of us were going through. You were always alone, even when you were with people."

There was a lot of truth in that statement, a lot more than John wanted to admit. "What if I told you that you were never supposed to be here?" he said slowly. "That because some people were and they came here, and you and your husband were just collateral damage?"

Rose honestly seemed to consider this for a minute. Finally she answered in her succinct fashion. "So what?"

This was a level of devotion that not even Locke had ever been capable of.

"My husband took us on our honeymoon in Australia because he wanted to fix me," Rose said calmly. "And because he did, I'm healthy again, and I can spend the rest of my life with the man I love. Now if that was just some kind of divine accident, then I'm willing to accept it as part of a bigger plan that I just couldn't see. That's what faith is, John."

Locke looked at Rose. "Has anyone ever told you're a very wise woman?"

"Every day I was married." Rose said with a smile.

For the first time he wondered what Helen would've thought of the island. Would she have seen it the same way he did? She was the one who'd taught him to believe, after all. And now the familiar ache was there. He hadn't seen her in more than a decade, but now he realized if he followed his path, he really never would see her again.

"Well, I have to go now," Rose said. "My husband gets a little worried when were apart for too long. Probably because he went to the bathroom at the wrong time."

Locke looked at her. "I hope I'll see you again soon, Rose."

"Not for a couple more weeks." Rose must've noticed his puzzled look because she added: "It's going to take a little longer to convince Bernard that he was wrong about you."

"Don't be too sure of that," Locke said. "_I'm_ still not completely sure he was wrong about me."

**WHOOOSH**

Jack shook his head. "Rose always knew the right thing to say. "

"Well, back then she had better bedside manner than you," Hurley reminded him.

"When you brought me back to your camp," Juliet said softly to Jack. "She was the only one of you who never judged me. I always felt extra guilty when I was talking to her. Really makes me wish I'd gotten to know her better."

Jack looked at Locke. "You a_re _going to tell us what happened to her and Bernard, aren't you?"

"Believe me, it's vital to my story," Locke assured them. "But right now, I think I've given all of you a lot to deal with, so it may be a good idea to stop talking about the island for awhile."

"I ain't the religious type, but amen to that," James said quietly. "I'm still pretty pissed at that Jacob guy watching me as if we were on some giant episode of _Big Brother."_

"Even after what Rose told me, it took me five days just to feel reasonable again, James," Locke admitted. "I suspect I've given you all a few sleepless nights, and for that I'm truly sorry."

"You're just the messenger, John," Claire said, gently taking John's hand.

"I think he remembers what used to happen to people who brought bad news," Sayid pointed out. "I had to deal with the same thing myself more than once."

"Well, considering Johnny didn't like what he saw any more than we would've," James admitted. "Can't say I blame him."

Just then, Hurley's cell rang. He was a little sheepish, then he looked at the caller ID and was puzzled. DESMOND.

Desmond had been only been to one of the meetings that had taken place since Locke's original return. This was understandable as he and his family lived on the other side of the world. He'd been planning to come this weekend, but that morning he'd called and said there was something else he had to deal with. None of them had any idea what that meant and Des, for once, had been reluctant to enlighten them.

Hurley answered his cell. "Yeah?" A long pause. "Dude, slow down." He was quiet for a moment. "Yeah, we're all here. I'll put you on speaker."

There was another hesitation. "We may have another problem," Desmond said slowly.

"When don't we?" James mumbled.

"Desmond, what's going on?"

"It's about the church."

James suddenly stiffened and so did Sayid. They knew better than the rest what this might be about. "Did you find something there?" Sayid demanded.

"Aye," Desmond enunciated. "I don't know what the hell it is, but I know for damn sure why you found that meddling woman there."

James was puzzled. "But we searched that place. We couldn't find a goddamn thing tying it to the island."

"Like everything else on that blasted place, it was basically right there if you knew where to look for it." Desmond was clearly angry. He'd wanted to be done with the island more than any of them.

"What did you find?" Jack asked.

Desmond sighed. "Much as I want to just burn the place down and salt the earth, I think you all need to see it for yourselves. Can't promise it will answer any question, but it might give us a clue as to what the sodding hell was going on there."

Jack looked at his watch. 5:30 pm. "Will anyone be suspicious if almost all the survivors of Oceanic 815 show in the same place?"

There was a hesitation, and then Penny spoke. "There've been construction signs put up around the church for the last two weeks. That said, I think you'd better make sure you don't all show up at once."

"Penny, its John," Locke spoke up for the first time. "I appreciate your caution, but I think we all know that we're not just concerned about paparazzi."

"I'm well aware of that," Penny admitted. "But I think if Eloise Hawking knew about this place, it's a pretty safe bet that Ben and his people did too. We've got security for that."

Even though Hurley had taken over leadership for the last year or so, this was one of those occasions that, once again, everybody was looking to Jack. He didn't like it, but he knew it counted. "Give us an hour," he finally said. "And watch your backs."

"You got it, brutha." Desmond said, and hung up.

Jack shook his head, and looked at Locke. They'd told him about the church when they had revealed the story about Widmore a couple of weeks earlier, but they had yet to take him to the place. "Call Helen," he said quietly. "Tell her the truth."

"She's going to be worried," Locke said slowly.

"Tell her you'll be safe with us," Kate said, walking up to John. "She probably won't believe it, but she will feel better knowing you're not alone."

Locke nodded.

Sayid walked up to Jack. "Do you think we're in danger?"

"No more than we were ten minutes ago," Jack said as calmly as he could manage. "But even if we are, that's never stopped us before."

Kate shook her head. "We just can't run away from it, can we?"

"Says the expert at running," James admitted with a bit of his old snark. He turned serious, and looked at Juliet. "You have my back, Blondie?"

"Just as long as this doesn't lead us on a way trip to the South Pacific," Juliet said with as much humor as she could muster.

Michael looked at his son. "You don't want to see this, you don't have to," he told Walt.

Walt actually seemed to think about for a moment. "I don't want to go back," he told his father. "But I don't want to be in the dark either. Just stay with me while were there, okay Dad?"

Jin and Sun walked over to Sayid. "Call Nadia," Sun said softly. "Tell her to go to our house and stay with the nanny and Ji Yeon."

Sayid looked at them. "I thought we weren't in danger."

"We're not," Jin said. "But she probably shouldn't be alone at a time like this."

"Better still," Hurley said. "Tell all of them to come here. Helen, Nadia, your nanny, everybody."

"You sure about that, Hurley?" Jin said.

"Dude, we stay together. That applies to our loved ones, too." Hurley said firmly.

Jack looked at John, who'd heard this part of the conversation. He nodded. "Ready for one more trek down the rabbit hole?" Jack said quietly.

Locke gave a small smile. "Actually, part of me missed watching you give orders."

James piped up. "That's the least believable thing you've said yet."


	14. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

Jack wanted to be as careful as possible in regard to anything that might linked them back to Charles Widmore. So he decided that, just to be safe, they should all leave Hurley's in five minute increments. It wouldn't make much difference if the church was being watched by any remnant of Widmore's or Ben's people, but frankly they were all less concerned about that possibility than the media.

Helen had dropped John off, so he had asked if he could ride with Jack and Kate. Neither of them had a problem with that.

"I take it you heard the name Eloise Hawking before," Jack asked as they drove out there.

"Richard mentioned it to me in connection with Widmore," Locke paused. "Actually, I was going to get around to telling you this before. She and Widmore had an affair for several years."

"We actually knew that already," Kate said. "She told Sayid and Sawyer as much."

"Did she mention that she was the leader of the Others for more than fifteen years?" Locke told them.

Jack was surprised, but not for the reason John thought. "How long was she on the island?"

"According to Richard, nearly a quarter of a century," Locke told them. "He didn't go into details about how she ended up on the island, but he did give some details that were surprising."

"Considering most of what we know about the woman comes from Desmond, I think you could tell us just about anything and it would come as a shock," Kate told them.

"She was always a bit more trigger happy than some of the Others," Locke said. "Richard told me she wanted to kill the Dharma Initiative even after the truce was signed. She might've gone through with had she not left the island in the fall of 1977."

"Did Richard tell you why she left?" Jack asked.

Locke shook his head. "Never went into detail. He said that something happened a few weeks before then that severely shook her. But he refused to give any detail."

"Did she ever have any conversations with Jacob?" Jack asked.

"That wasn't something leaders did back then. And as impatient as she was, Hawking was willing to go along with the routine."

"You don't remember seeing her name on the wheel?" Kate asked gently.

Locke thought for a second. "There were 360 names on that list. I basically only remembered the ones that were either familiar or hadn't been crossed out. So I'm not sure, honestly."

"Its okay, John," Jack said calmly. "If there's one thing that list told us is that you didn't necessarily have to be on it to earn a place on the island."

"And if Jacob allowed her to leave the island in the first place," Locke pointed out, "there's an excellent chance she didn't matter much to him to begin with."

"You can hold off telling us until we're all together if you want," Kate asked. "But how is it that people managed to get off the island in the first place?"

"Richard could be maddeningly vague about giving away the island's secrets," Locke told them. "I know that after the Dharma Initiative was purged, they took over all of their technology. The sub, which was called the Galagga by the way, was the main way that the Others had to leave the island for the fifteen years between the Purge and our arrival."

"Til you didn't blow it up," Jack pointed out.

"'Til I didn't blow it up," Locke said with a trace of humor. "But in a larger sense I had done just as much damage to the sub when Desmond blew the hatch."

Kate nodded. "When the sky turned purple, it basically killed the satellites."

"And essentially killed the instruments on the sub," Locke told them. "Ben essentially told me as much when he was trying to persuade me not to blow up the sub. After you and Juliet left the island, there would've been no way for you to ever find it again using it."

"Then why would Ben make the same promise to Juliet?" Kate asked. "Based on everything he told us, there's no way in hell he would've just let her leave."

"There were people on the island who knew how to fix the communications," Locke told them. "A few of them were killed in your personal war with the Others, but there were still a couple who would've been able to make the technology functional again. Ben intended to get around to it after he finished his raid on our camp. Understandably, that plan got blown up the same way the camp did."

Jack considered this. "Did you ever get the technology repaired after you were in charge?"

"I might've gotten around to it. But I wasn't in charge of the Others that long," Locke gave a small smile. "And you're going to have to wait for the rest of that story."

"You're right," Jack pointed out. "Because now it's time for us to show you one of ours. We're here."

Indeed, they had just arrived at the church. As they got out of the car, Locke did a quick look around. "Desmond and Penny, I assume they had this entire area swept for cameras?" he asked.

"When Penny took possession, yes." Jack said. "And given how paranoid she has to be about any place remotely handled by her father, I assume she's been doing it ever since."

Locke nodded. "Lead the way," he asked.

Jack and the rest had been the next to last group to leave Hurley's. Understandably, he wanted to be sure that everybody else was safe. Claire had wanted to make sure Ji Yeon was okay, so she'd agreed to ride out with him. The rest of the group had all arrived, and were standing somewhat awkwardly in the aisles.

Sayid was talking with Desmond and Penny. James was showing Juliet and Michael the area around the nave. Jin and Sun were sitting with Walt. Standing somewhat off to himself was a face that looked vaguely familiar to Jack, but he couldn't quite place him.

Penny saw what was going on, and walked over to Jack's group. "I realize coming to this place in the middle of the night isn't ideal, but I don't think we had a choice."

Kate was confused. "It's not even 7 o'clock."

Penny nodded. "I must still be on London time. Not to mention everything we've found."

Locke in the meantime was looking at the man with a beard in a blue suit. "I'm sorry, but how is he connected to this?"

"He's connected to me, John." Penny said slowly. "This is Daniel Faraday."

Jack made the connection. "So you're the man who was playing at Charlie's memorial," he said quietly. "I'm guessing you didn't know about everything else before then."

"I still don't understand," Locke said.

Dan took a deep breath. "Eloise Hawking was my mother. And the test results on the DNA came in two days ago. My father was Charles Widmore."

Locke's face cleared. "Then I apologize," he offered his hand. "My name is John Locke, and I'm sorry we had to meet under these circumstances. I'm guessing your sister told you about what's going on."

Dan nodded. "My fiancée and I have spent the last month learning the darker secrets of my family tree. My mother was a cold, unfeeling woman, but I had no idea she was involved in these kinds of actions."

"You're not responsible for what she did. Your father either." Kate said sincerely.

By now James and Juliet had walked over to them. Michael had gone back to talk with his son and the Kwons. "Guess you were never expecting to learn about the family business this way," James said slowly. Juliet dug him in the ribs. "Sorry. I ain't very good with the social niceties. And I gotta be honest. I ain't wild about being here again."

"I know you've probably told your family this, but do you have any memory of this place?" Jack asked.

"Well, as I told" Dan actually looked a little more cheerful at this, "my family a couple of months ago, I remembered my mother spending a lot of time in church the last few months we lived in LA. Now I can't say it with certainty, but I'm pretty sure this it is. And based on what I've been told, it seems she didn't come here to pray."

"I gotta say, Sayid and I were in a few months ago, and we didn't see anything that looked remotely suspicious," James told him.

"You weren't here long enough, and you didn't look in the right place." Desmond had crossed the distance. "How long do you think it'll me till Hurley and

Claire get here?"

"Five minutes at the most," Jin said. "Maybe at least you can get started on why we're here in the first place."

Desmond and Penny exchanged a glance. "When our people searched this place three months ago, they didn't find anything that gave us a hint as to why Hawking would have been operating out of a church," Penny began. "Then about two weeks ago, my company sent over the blueprint of the place, and we were just going to file it away and try to move on. "

"You can put this under my fault," Desmond admitted. "I wanted to find Dan's mother. I wish I could say that it was to get explanations for me new brother-in-law, but honestly, I wanted to know how the hell this woman had gotten into my head, known what I was goin' to do before I did it, and cost me the better part of four years of my life."

"It's not like any of us are in a position to call the kettle black, Scotty," James said slowly. "Hard as we've been trying to put that damn rock behind us, we still wanted to get some answers as to what the hell was going on." He pointed at John. "Locke's been giving us some from the inside. Maybe there were some from the outside."

"There are," Desmond said. "Can't necessarily say you'll like them."

"We don't like the ones John's been giving us either," Sayid said quietly. "It doesn't mean we still don't want them."

Desmond looked at his wife and then at his brother-in-law. "This is as much your story as it ours, Dan," he said. "Tell them what you saw."

Dan clearly wasn't used to being the center of attention in this fashion, but he gathered himself, and straightened his tie. "Desmond showed me the blueprints to see if there was anything here that I might have recognized from any of the times I visited the church. I didn't expect to find anything. Then I noticed that near the back there was a much larger source of electrical wiring that had any business being there."

"For a church?" Juliet asked.

"For a hydroelectric power plant," Daniel said plainly. "When I mentioned this to Desmond, he turned pale. I still didn't understand why."

"There's an area in the back of the church that when our people did a cursory look, they saw signs that read HIGH VOLTAGE. " Penny said. "When they got the door open, all the could find was what looked like a storage closet. They searched but couldn't find anything suspicious."

"I'm guessing these men weren't your best employees," Sayid said.

"In their defense, they didn't know what to look for," Desmond shook his head. "When we got here yesterday, the first thing I had them do was tear down one of the walls."

"Oh boy," They all looked up to see that Hurley and Claire were standing in the hall. "Let me guess. You found another hatch."

"Give the man a cigar," Desmond said. "But it sure as hell isn't like anything we saw on that island."

"What does it do?" Jack asked.

Desmond looked at Penny and then at Daniel. "I think you'd better have a look for yourselves."

"Can we all fit down there?" Sun asked.

"There's a lot of room. You will have to watch your step, though." Penny said.

They started to gathered in a crowd before Hurley spoke up. "You know, if this is island related, I think Jack and John should go first. You know, out of respect."

James considered this. "Right. And before you go, tell Freckles not to come, and three minutes later, she'll head down anyway."

This got the huge laugh that James had no doubt intended. Even Jack smiled a little. "Okay. In all seriousness, Des, you and Penny come with us. If there's anything down here that you can explain, believe me, we want to know about it."

"How long before the rest of us can take a look?" Jin asked.

"Come down in about five minutes," Locke said quietly. "The time for withholding information about the island has long since passed. And the more heads down there, maybe one of us can figure out what's going on."

"Just watch your step," Dan said.

Locke and Jack looked at Desmond. "You'll see in a couple of minutes."

**LLLLLL**

"I'm letting you know up front," Jack said as they began their walk. "If there's anything there that resembles another button, ignore anything I say about it and just keep pushing it."

Locke gave a bigger smile. "I have a feeling I should say the same thing to Desmond."

Desmond gave a harried smile. "Shot in the dark, but you didn't hear anything about any off-island Dharma stations, did you?"

"I'm not even certain I ever knew about all the stations that were _on _the island," Locke admitted. "I saw a fair share of Dharma film strips, but I think they were taking a page out of everyone else on the island's playbook, and never giving a straight answer to a question."

"Interesting you should say that," Desmond said. "I'm not sure if there's any direct evidence, but from what I can tell, this station looks like it what designed even before the Dharma Initiative."

That actually stopped Jack and Locke in their tracks. "How do you know?" Jack asked.

"You'll see in a minute, but I can tell you this much. If I'm reading this right, it may be how they found the island in the first place."

"I wouldn't be too sure of that," John muttered under his breath. Penny was about to ask a question, but by then they reached the room in the back, and it was pretty clear that even though they were no longer on the island, they were still in a place most of them had hoped they'd never visit again.

There was a wall, and behind it was the familiar icon that they had come to recognize that was from the Dharma Initiative. This time, it looked like something resembling an old fashioned lamp. Locke was reminded of the lighthouse.

"That look familiar?" Desmond asked John.

"Nope," Locke said, shaking his head. "Lead on."

Desmond pushed the door aside, and they descended down a flight of stairs. "My father spent years trying to track down anything tied to the Hanso family," Penny said, speaking mainly to John. "Most of it had to do with items involving the Black Rock, but it's clear he was chasing anything Alvar did to."

"You have any idea what happened to him?"

"He disappeared from sight in the mid-1970s. What I do know is that even though he'd be well over a hundred years old, there are still rumors he's still alive trying to maintain the illusion that the Dharma dream is still alive," Penny told them.

"Our own Jimmy Hoffa," Jack muttered.

"And probably with far more skeletons in his closet," Locke said.

"If he is, this may be his biggest one," Penny said.

They all stopped in their tracks. It was understandable because they well away from the island, this was a memory they could've lived without. "Déjà vu all over again," Jack mumbled.

For their were the ancient computers that they had seen in the Swan, complete with an ugly brown model that might have been used by grade-schoolers in the eighties – the one that they all recognized from various place, but Jack and the rest would remember it for being the one with the numbers on it.

There was, however, one literally giant difference from this one. There was what appeared to be a giant globe on the floor of the room. There were some kind of electric conductors at what were almost certainly compass point in the cylindrical structure. And overshadowing everything was a giant pendulum, constantly undulating with what appeared to be a compass needle at the end of it.

"Desmond?" Jack found himself asking. "Do your fillings still hurt?"

"Aye." Desmond paused. "But somehow, it's not the same way."

Locke was watching the pendulum carefully, and when it undulated away from him, he moved with the quickness that he had demonstrated so many times across the island. It was easy to see what had attracted his attention – there was a giant board with numbers that kept flicking back and forth, much like on an old-fashioned timetable at a train station or an airport.

"Any idea what that's for, brutha?" Desmond asked.

"Those seem to be coordinates for latitude and longitude," John said grimly. "And considering what that pendulum seems to be doing, I think you're right about wanting to follow your first impulse about burning the place down."

"I did some checking. If there was a fail-safe key, that blasted woman took it with her."

Jack shook his head. "Our friends aren't going to be happy when they see this," he said, stating the obvious.

"That's not a reason to keep them from it," Penny said.

**LLLLL**

Within ten minutes, the rest of the group had assembled around the room, trying to figure out what the hell they were seeing.

Walt was understandably trying to play catch-up. "Mr. Locke, were all the stations on the island like this?"

Kate, surprisingly, answered the question. "I'd say close to all of them were. And all of them seemed to be hiding what their real purpose was."

Juliet nodded. "Mikhail must have used this to communicate with the outside world. There was an access to sonar on the computer in the Flame."

"And it must somehow have been linked to the Looking Glass," Sayid said. "It's the only way the submarine would've known how to find the island in the first place."

"Um, doesn't an island have to stay in the same place all the time?" Hurley said as logically as he could. "Land can't move."

Locke, who'd been lost in his own thoughts, came out of them for a moment. ""When did anything on the island do what was logical?"

This was a bombshell on top of another one. "John, are you saying the island moved?"

"I am saying that even after Widmore's crew had been exterminated and all of you had gotten to safety, I overheard a couple of conversations I wasn't supposed to." Locke said slowly. "Richard brought up the idea to Dogen that in order to stop Widmore from finding this place, it might be necessary to move the island."

There was a very long silence and it was clear, despite everything that Locke had told them over the past few weeks, most of them thought he was crazy. There were, however, some notable exceptions.

Daniel, perhaps leaning on whatever scientific training he still had, turned to his sister. "You found Desmond – and by extension, everybody else – because your people saw some kind of electromagnetic event. "

"What's that got to do with anything?" James asked.

"In my studies of relativistic theories, they said massive amount of electronic energy might make it possible to 'unstick' people in time," Dan said calmly. "Desmond said something like that happened to him when he blew the hatch, as you put it."

None of them were quite sure what to think about that. Claire and Hurley knew the most about the flashes of the future Desmond had had about Charlie immediately following the implosion of the Swan, and even they'd had a harder time accepting what they were hearing. They had mostly been concerned about the fate that the man they had both cared for just hadn't been unable to outrun.

Desmond, not surprisingly, was willing to listen. "I'm still not sure what happened. I don't think I ever will be. But I don't know whether I traveled back at time and left the island, or my life flashed before my eyes, only it seemed like I could control it."

"It may have been a bit of both," Dan said. "I can't begin to hypothesize based on the little information I have, but what it sounds like is that your _consciousness _left the island and traveled through time, but you stayed right there. How my mother fits into it, I still can't figure it out."

Locke didn't know this part of the story. "Your mother was in Desmond's vision?"

"I thought she was some part of my subconscious until I saw her picture," Desmond said. "If you're looking for logic…"

"You were on the same rock we were, Scotty," James pointed out. "Hell, you were on it nearly ten times longer the rest of us. You know we weren't anywhere near Kansas when it came to logic." He turned back to Daniel. "But say we accept that the sky turning purple blew Desmond back in time. That's a _person. _How the hell would an island be able to move?"

"I dropped out of Oxford before I could finish my degree," Dan admitted. "And I seriously doubt a quantum physicist could explain half of what happened on that island. I'm just trying to fill in the puzzle."

Juliet was still looking at the board. James walked over to her. "When you went to Mittelos with the Other recruitment team, what exactly happened?"

"They asked me to drink some orange juice that they said they had put a sedative in," Juliet said. "I didn't understand the reasoning, but I'd come this far, so I drank the whole thing in one gulp. I had just enough time for Ethan to tell me I should have sipped it down before I blacked out. The next thing I knew, they were shaking me awake on the sub."

"You have any idea how long you were out?" Jack asked. "Hours, days?"

Juliet shook her head. "The one thing I learned is that before you got on the sub you had to take an extremely strong sedative and often be strapped into a bunk. All Ben would say was it was for 'our own good"

"Hard as it may be to believe, Ben might've been telling the truth," Locke said quietly.

"You're right. I don't believe it," Sayid said flatly.

"Remember Richard's story. On the Black Rock, the crew all suffered serious health issues just by coming near the island. A lot of things may have changed since then, but I seriously doubt that might be one of them."

"Frank did insist that we follow a very strict bearing when we were flying to and from the freighter," Jack pointed out. "They were credible."

Sayid considered all this. "Even if we ignore that, the island was hard enough to find as it was. They might need this station just to find a safe bearing to make sure everyone got back in one piece. Unless things have changed since I left the military, someone would have to pilot the sub there even if everyone else was asleep."

"All right," Hurley was still trying to process all this. "We think we know what this place does, even if we don't know how it does it. Big question is, what are we going to do with it now?"

"That is the question of the day," Desmond said.

It was clear yet again that everybody was waiting for Jack to say something. "I think I'm going to give the floor to the man who was actually more interested in protecting the island," he said slowly.

John gave an appreciative smile. "Nobody's found any self-destruct buttons anywhere," he asked Desmond. "No suspicious keys? No C4?"

"We did a sweep of the place before you came here," Desmond reminded him. "Unless any of you have spotted something we could've missed?"

"Even if we had, I don't think blowing this place is in our best interest," Sayid said. "This isn't a deserted island. There's no way we could do anything remotely like it without attraction some kind of attention."

"Don't be too sure. This _is _LA," James said, with a touch of his old humor. "But it sure as hell would attract attention from whatever remnants of the Others are still hanging around in civilization."

"I was never suggesting we blow the dam", Locke said calmly. "Whatever's left of Widmore's organization clearly knew of the place." He looked at Penny. "I understand you've spent the past few months doing your best to dismantle it?"

Penny nodded. "The operative term is 'doing my best'. My father spent decades building it up. It took me years just to find out about the island in the first place. I'm going to have to turn over a lot of rocks before we're even close."

Locke thought for a second. "I don't know if Ben or anyone else on the island knew about this place," he said quietly. "I know that he came and went from the island pretty freely bef0re we got there. He was in Dharma for a long time, remember, so its possible he heard about it somehow."

"So we can't destroy it, and we can't just leave it open," Kate said slowly. "Is there a door number three?"

"I think we all know what it is." Locke said.

There was a collective moan. "You're not gonna say we have to set up shifts watching the place, are you?" Hurley said.

"Shifts yes, us no," Locke said. He turned to Penny again. "There a way you can make sure this is under Widmore Industries banner?"\

"I am one, much as I sometimes regret it," Penny said.

"Find people you trust in your company," Locke told Penny. "Tell them to guard this place, say its connected with a very old scientific organization that's mostly out of work. Tell them every few hours to go inside and to check the computers."

"Especially if that board lights up," Desmond said calmly.

"And what happens if it does?" Claire asked. "Hawking wasn't guarding this place all these years just to protect it. She obviously thought that someday it was going to work, and someone was going to need to find the island. We may be done with it, but someday, someone else may need to go there."

They all considered this for a long minute. That was probably the reason Desmond had told them about it the first place. But Jack was pretty sure the rest of them were thinking about what John had told them about the lighthouse and all those names that had been written down for years. They had all left the island thinking it was behind them. It now seemed to have followed them back to Los Angeles.

"You can understand why I might've hoped there was some kind of key here," Locke muttered.

"You and me both, brutha," Desmond said.

"I've seen this movie before," Hurley said quietly.

"Seen it? Hell, we all lived through it," James said sourly.

Locke steadied himself. "Much as I don't want to say it, I'm afraid we're going to have to deal with it like we did everything else connected with the island."

"You mean ignore the supernatural stuff and just try to get rescued?" Hurley joked.

Jack actually smiled at this. "That was my approach, and it didn't exactly work wonders for us," he reminded them.

"Well, the approach of just accepting it as our collective destiny wasn't exactly a winner either," Locke pointed out. "Clearly we need to meet somewhere in the middle. And I think it has to be to wait and watch."

"He has a point," Sayid said. "I don't want anything more to do with that island, but I realize there are consequences for trying to just ignore it. We'll have to play it by ear."

Penny agreed. "I'll place a call to Henrik and Mathias. They're used to this kind of work, they're discreet, and they know about the island already. Plus they'll probably be elated at being able to work somewhere warm this time."

Dan spoke up for the first time in awhile. "Is it alright if I tell Charlotte about this?"

Locke looked confused. "His fiancée," Sayid informed him.

"Does she already know about the island?" Locke asked Dan. He nodded. "Then tell her what you found."

"She might be able to give us more answers than you think," Dan told them. "She's an anthropologist, and she's as curious about this as I am."

Locke frowned at this. "Tread carefully, Daniel," he said slowly. "However much your family has told you about the island, the deeper your involvement becomes, the more likely it is will ensnare you. And this isn't a place you want to volunteer your involvement."

"My parents were involved in this. Neck deep, from the looks of it," Dan reminded them. "There is a very real possibility that they were pushing me to this island before I defied them."

Juliet looked at Dan. "Speaking strictly for myself, you got very lucky when you chose to not get involved in that route. Don't try to tempt fate. It rarely gives you a second chance."

"I think that may be something we all can agree on," Desmond said sincerely.

Dan considered this for a moment. "I want answers," he finally said. "But I don't want to lose everything to get them. I'll be careful with what I tell Charlotte."

"Then can we, like, get out of here," Hurley asked. "This place is seriously giving me the creeps."

"Me too," Sun said.

As they began to walk out, Locke gently pulled Jack aside. "I'm going to tell everybody else this eventually," he whispered, " but because we've had our problems with withholding information in the past, I figured I'd better tell you first."

Jack was genuinely touched by this.

"I remembered something from the names I saw in the wheel," Locke told him. "Widmore wasn't there, and I don't think Hawking was there either. But there was a name that wasn't crossed off."

Jack suddenly filled in the blank. "Daniel's."

Locke nodded. "Number 101."

Jack considered this. "That explains a lot." He looked at Dan, who was talking to his sister. "Should we tell him?"

"The man's been burdened with a lot already in the last few months," Locke said slowly. "And be honest, Jack. Part of you is really wishing I hadn't told you about the lighthouse."

"Actually, it's a very large part," Jack admitted. "Don't you think its better to warn him before he gets in to deep?"

"I don't know if it would make a difference," Locke argued. "I changed things when I was on the island. Mostly for the better. What I don't know for certain is whether I did enough to stop destiny. The island got us without any warning. And it gets people who know about it. I'm really not sure if anything can stop it no matter whose in charge."

"Who is in charge?" Jack asked.

"Someone wiser than Jacob. Beyond that, I'm still not ready to say," Locke told him. "Just tell Desmond to take care of his family."

And with that, Jack was willing to be content.


	15. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

**Note: This chapter will mostly be from the Grey's Anatomy world**

**SEATTLE GRACE CAFETERIA**

"How's he been doing?" Izzie asked Callie.

"Last couple of days, he's been in a brown study," Callie said quietly. "And you know Hugo; he could pretty much be cheerful during a plague."

"Based on what Jack told us, he was pretty much the morale officer on the island," Alex admitted. "If he's in a bad mood…"

Considering everything that had gone on between them – Stevens and Torres in particular - the fact that Alex, Izzie and Callie were now having lunch together the last three days was the subject of a fair amount of gossip. (The most prominent rumor was that Alex was trying to talk his fiancée into a threesome. No one at the hospital knew that, in a sense that had already happened.) But considering that the three of them knew more about everything that had happened on the island than just everybody else at Seattle Grace meant they were pretty much the only people that could talk about the moods of their friends. And considering that Jack and Juliet had looked a little more disconnected since they come back from their weekly trip to Los Angeles, the three of them were the only ones who knew just why these two people were in such a bizarre mood.

"And he hasn't told you what happened last weekend?" Alex understandably found this hard to believe. "Hurley can't shut up half the time."

"Says he'll tell me in a couple days," Callie said. "Basically, he's saying that the last conversation he had with Locke has pretty much thrown all of them for a loop. He says he wants to tell me, but he's afraid it'll complete change how I look at life."

Izzie shook her head. "Well, if what Jack and Kate told us is true – and after everything they've told us, they're not going to start lying now - it sounds like everybody who survived that crash was basically pushed their entire lives to be on that plane."

"That what's Hugo told me, and I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around it," Callie said slowly. "I mean, my dad spent half my life trying to convince me of a higher power. I don't know how he'd handle it if I told him, God exists and he's chilling on an island in the Pacific."

"Hey, they never said this guys Jacob was God," Alex tried to argue.

Izzie put her hand on her hip. "He basically arranged it for their plane to crash on the island. Which means that he had to get them all _on _the plane. Which means… no." She looked at him. "I know everybody thinks I'm the philosophy major in this group, but I refuse to believe that someone can just make all your choices for you like he was writing your name on a giant procedure board called 'Life'."

"Unfortunately, its beginning to sound a lot like that's just what happened," Callie said. "No wonder Hugo's been having trouble sleeping the last few days"

"I know," Izzie put her head in her hands. "Just talking about it gives me chills. I can't imagine how the rest of them are dealing with it."

"Particularly Jack," Alex put his arm around Izzie. "Guy was like the rest of us. Looking for an ordered and meaningful life where he made every choice himself. How'd you feel if you realized that not only your specialty had been chosen for you, but your decision to be a doctor? And everything else that you thought you had a choice in?"

And at that moment George O'Malley, a doctor who'd been one of their own for awhile, but who had caused them a lot of grief over the last year walked up. "Hey guys," he said quietly. "What's up?"

"We're contemplating the meaning of existence, O'Malley?" Alex said, in the snide tone he used to just about everybody. "Destiny vs. free will. Who wins in a playoff?"

George listened for a moment. "That's heavy lifting," he said slowly. "Then again, considering what the two of you went through the past year, I guess you have every reason to worry about the dark stuff."

Izzie looked at the man she had once considered her best friend before she had destroyed his marriage. She exchanged glances with Callie who shrugged. "Sit down, George."

O'Malley looked understandably stunned. Callie had barely exchanged two words with him since he'd signed the divorce papers. And Alex had been particularly territorial since he and Izzie had gotten back together – reasonably. But George had always been the most human of all of them when it came to medicine – they all knew he had the potential to be the best doctor of all of them, and one of those reasons had been he was always a good listener. Maybe he could come up with some answers that they couldn't.

"How much did Jack tell you about what happened after the crash?" Callie asked.

"Bits and pieces," George said as he took his seat. "Hurley told me a little bit, too. It's always been weird though. Every time they tell you something, they always act like they're trying not to tell us that the mass is malignant."

"I have a feeling they've been sharing bits and pieces with everybody here," Izzie said slowly. "Most of it's probably stuff about surviving a plane crash and trying to get rescued."

George was clearly a little baffled by this. "Of course they did," he said slowly. "Are you telling me there's more than that?"

The three of them exchanged glances again. "O'Malley, say I managed to do what Jack and the others did," he said slowly. "I would fucking brag about it for the rest of my life. I would lead in to it every time I went into a bar. I would milk the celebrity train for all it was worth. Jack Shephard comes to our hospital, not only does he not doing any of that, he doesn't tell us one word of it until the media comes knocking on our hospital door six months later. Even after that, he doesn't even go into detail about what happened. What does that tell you?"

George thought for a few seconds. "That something really terrible happened between then and now," he said carefully. "Besides, you know Jack. He takes all the blame and never the credit."

"All right, you're halfway there," Alex admitted.

"And that would be fine if it were just Jack," Izzie said "But it's not just him. Think about it, George. Oceanic 815 disappeared two years ago. A couple of months after that, it's found in a trench in Indonesia with everybody dead. A month after that, 39 people return to civilization that are confirmed survivors of that same crash appear in Hawaii. How long after they came back to civilization do you think it would be before one of them signed a movie deal? And yet none of the survivors have made any public statements about what happened during the 100 days they were missing. In the world where everybody wants to be a celebrity, how often does that happen?"

This time George didn't hesitate. "Never. And the day after never."

Izzie looked at Callie for support; something George had never seen her do. "So ask yourself, George, what do you think could've happened that was so terrible that everybody who came back has refused to tell anybody what happened? How about we start with the question that no one has even tried to answer? If there were survivors of the crash, why was there a plane at the bottom of the ocean?"

"I've got a better question," George asked. "How did someone come up with over three hundred bodies to put on that plane?"

"That is… actually a very good question," Alex said admiringly. "You'd probably have to empty a cemetery to get that many bodies."

"Screw a cemetery. You'd need some kind of mass grave," Callie told him. "But let's leave that aside for now, because you need to answer the first question."

George processed this for a second. "To keep people from trying to find out what happened to the real plane."

"And that, O'Malley, is just the tip of the iceberg of what Jack has been telling me and Izzie while she was going through chemo," Alex said slowly.

George took this in. "That's why you would only let me come see you every other session," he said quietly

Izzie looked a little sheepish. "He said he'd tell us while I was getting better," she said slowly.

"Hell, to know what was going on all those months, I'd have gone through chemo and I'm not even sick," George froze. "Sorry, Iz." He looked at Callie. "I'm guessing Hurley was willing to share his secrets, too."

"Hurley never understood why they had to lie about in the first place," Callie said quietly. "They basically had to tell him that if they didn't lie, they'd all end up in some kind of mental hospital."

George's eyes almost popped. "The story's that insane?"

"Not going to lie to you, George. Parts of it have kept me up nights. I imagine it's done the same to them."

"It's done a major head trip on me at times," Alex admitted.

For Karev to admit any kind of weakness, even now, was enough to unnerve George. "How crazy we talking about?"

"Matrix level shit," Alex said. "This is your last chance to take the blue pill."

George looked at the two women who, at various times, had been the center of his life. "This is going to be a lot heavier than missing the boards by a point, George," Izzie said.

Callie looked at him. "You'd probably be able to handle it better than the rest of them," she said, indicating their fellow residents and attendings.

George looked at them. "Where do we start?"

"Not here," Alex said. "Shephard's right about one thing, this place has more leaks than before we fixed the plumbing. Meet us at our trailer after your shift ends."

"Thanks," George said.

"You may not thank us before this is over," Callie said honestly.

JOE'S

7:13 PM

"You're killing me, James," Joe told his customer. "Half an hour and all you've had is ginger ale."

"I ain't as much since I gave up drinking," James Ford admitted to the friendly bartender. "But when you get kicked out of Australia because you beat one of their ministers to a pulp in a bar brawl, you know you got to get your head on straight."

"Jack's the same way," Joe said, shaking his head. "Most you can ever get him to do is nurse one Scotch for two hours."

James gave a small smile. "Doc was in a bad way when he got on the plane," he said softly. "Guessing he probably he told you what happened to his father."

"I'm not supposed to know, but yeah," Joe told him

James' face clouded. "Then again, booze didn't do the job single-handedly." He looked into the distance, and then managed to shake it off. "Tell you what. Why don't you bring me an order of those chicken tenders, so at least you can say you made a profit off me?"

"Sure thing," Joe said with a smile.

"You waiting for Dr. Carlson?"

James looked up to see that Lexie Grey was a standing a few feet away. "She's been at your hospital nearly six months. I think you can call her Juliet now."

"I don't know why. You barely do."

James gave an actual smile. "Dr. Sloan. Or should I say, McSteamy and Little Grey."

"Mind if we join you?" Mark asked.

"It'll help kill the time. Jules ain't gonna be here for another half hour."

The plastic surgeon and his resident girlfriend pulled up a seat.

"So the two of you willing to be seen in public these days?" James asked.

"I guess Juliet and Jack told you about the gossip," Mark said.

"Are you kidding? Doc's been filling our ears with this soap opera ever since he started working there," James said with a trace of his old humor. "How do you guys have time to operate on patients with all the sex that's going on at the hospital?"

Mark actually looked a little sheepish upon hearing this. "It's that bad,"

"We could probably sell a pilot to Fox just based on what we've heard," James replied. "And I thought hospital dramas were boring. However, word of advice."

"Go ahead," Lexie said slowly.

"The nicknames are pretty lame," James told them. "I mean, I'll give you McDreamy that had genuine imagination, got the mood, solid nine out of ten. But McSteamy?" He made a tsk sound. "Really derivative. No effort at all. Gets tired the third time you hear it."

"And I suppose you could do better?" Mark said with an eyebrow raised.

James actually started laughing heartily at that remark. "Oh, Dr. Sloane, clearly my fiancé has not done an adequate job of telling you about my stock in trade."

"It was a challenge, not a failure on my part."

James regained control of himself. "I'll grant you, it probably wouldn't demonstrate much imagination on my part. I mainly deal in pop culture nicknames, and I stopped watching medical shows right around the time St. Elsewhere all supposedly took place in that kid's head."

Lexie looked a little baffled. "Where's St. Elsewhere?"

"What kind of medicine have you been studying?" James said in mock outrage. "Nope, nope, not going to tease her. Series still hasn't come out on DVD. The point is, the best I could probably do for you right now," He looked at Sloane. "Plasticman."

Mark looked at him. "Okay, that's not too bad."

"You might think differently if you had to hear it every day for the rest of your life."

"I get called McSteamy at least once a shift. I'm ready for a change."

"Not sure what I could do for you, Lexie, is it?" James grew thoughtful.

"I can live with Little Grey for now," Lexie said.

"You two okay? I mean, I heard McDreamy the Brain Surgeon beat you up when he heard you were dating," James said.

"We've worked things out," Mark said. "Gotta admit, the first couple of date nights have been awkward. But from what I understand about Jack's wife, you can sympathize."

James grew more pensive. "Hell, if you'd told me a year ago that our Dr. Shephard and I could be practically besties, no one who came back with us to civilization would've taken that bet. And we've all got money to burn."

"Jack's given everybody on staff at least some details about what it was like after the plane crash was like," Lexie said slowly.

James knew this, and he knew that Juliet had given some details about her time on the island to a few select people. He was not, however, about to spill any secrets without getting some kind of permission. "A lot of shit went down over the hundred days before we were rescued," he began slowly. "Last thing I wanna do is make things in the hospital a bit trickier for my friend and for my better half."

"You're not married yet," Mark reminded him.

"As my friends would be the first to tell you, she's still my better half," James reminded them. "But considering that I think everybody at your hospital has known some of what really happened, and I have yet to see any of it on TMZ, I'm going to give the two of you some latitude. I'll let you ask some questions about me and what I did before and after the crash."

Mark considered this. "Why is that neither Jack nor Juliet will tell us what you did before?"

"Because they're afraid they're still might be cops who would try to throw me in prison," James said bluntly. He looked at Mark. "You know, considering why you came to Seattle in the first place, I'm kinda shocked we never had a conversation before now. We've got quite a bit in common."

"You're a plastic surgeon?' Mark said with a little humor.

"I destroyed marriages and ruined women's lives," James said matter-of-factly. "The difference is, for you it was a sideline. I made a living by it."

Mark actually slumped a little to hear so baldly what he had done to his best friend. Lexie was a little puzzled. "I don't get it. What were you, an escort?"

"That would have had some dignity. I was a con man." James looked haunted. "I actually lost track of how many women I screwed and how many bank accounts I emptied. I can't even tell you I did it for the money, 'cause I spent it nearly as fast as I made it." He looked out into the distance. "I even went to jail when one of my marks actually threw me in prison. I was an absolute shit before I got on the plane, and quite some time after it."

"You must've had some good qualities," Mark asked.

"A couple of days after the crash, when it became clear rescue wasn't coming anytime soon, I went into the fuselage where all the bodies were," James said slowly. "I know you've probably spent a lot of time among the dead, but it's nothing compared to what it was like there. I don't even know if I noticed the stink. All I cared about was going through the luggage."

"Excuse me?" Lexie said.

"Liquor bottles, sunscreen, medicine, hell, half the time I was looking for books and magazines. I was standing among dead people, looking to see what books they'd brought on the trip so I wouldn't be bored." James told them calmly. "And I'll be honest. Part of me was going through their stuff what might be valuable to other people. Everybody else is worried about being rescued, I'm about to set up a goddamn black market for penicillin." James looked at them for awhile. "Doesn't quite fit the pretty picture they've drawn of me in the media, does it?"

Mark looked at James for a minute. "Joe? Next round's on me. I've finally found someone in Seattle who's a bigger asshole than I am."

James considered this for a minute. Then he started chuckling. It gradually grew bigger until he was full out laughing. "I knew I liked you, Plasticman."

**LLLLLL**

Juliet had gone back to work still struggling with what she had heard and seen last week. She knew it had hit Jack and just about everybody else even harder and she seemed to be dealing better with it, but the operative word was _seemed._

Much of the three years Juliet spent on the island, she had refused to accept it was special. Her patients kept dying, she'd begun an affair with a married man because she was lonely, and as a result he had died; Ben Linus had kept telling her the island was special, and after awhile she just stopped listening to him, and she had never for a second believed in the existence of some all-powerful Jacob.

Now Locke had blown things up again, and she was questioning everything she believed in. Had Ben really believed she was the person who would solve all their problems? Or had he never been part of the equation? Had Richard gotten his marching orders from Jacob that she needed to come to the island? And now she was beginning to wonder if it had begun even before that. Had Jacob been maneuvering her the same way it seemed everybody who'd been on the plane had been? If this was true, it made Ben seem like a positive saint by comparison.

Juliet had been holding it together as best she could the last few days, but she felt she was holding on by a thread. What was keeping her together was the presence of everybody else. She'd been having long phone calls with Kate and Claire every day, and James was being more of a sympathetic ear than she'd ever thought possible. All of them, however, were worried about Jack.

Jack had been willing to accept the idea that there'd been some kind of destiny to their ending up on the plane. But on the island, he'd been the voice of rationality despite all of the strangeness that had happened. What Locke was telling him was clearly shaking his world view more than the rest, and all of them were worried that he might start drinking again. Juliet might've argued the point, but she'd had a problem with drinking herself over the years – when you were involved with Edmund Burke and Ben Linus, it was very hard to get through the day without a glass of wine waiting for you at the end of the end of it. What she'd learned from Locke last week had made her crave a glass of Dharma rum in a way she didn't think was possible.

It had taken her more of an effort to make it through the last four days, and only the knowledge that she had someone to come home to who understood just what she was going through had served as a balm. But it was staring to become noticeable to the outside world. She'd seemed to be drifting off in the middle of consultations, a couple of the nurses had had to cover for her in some of her procedures, and she'd asked Addison to cover the NICU because she didn't trust herself around any of the premature babies.

She actually felt blessed for where she worked. If she'd been working at her old hospital in Miami, any one of her fellow attendings or residents would have asked after her wellbeing. But this was Seattle Grace, where no one – not even her boyfriend – had noticed that one of the residents had been suffering from hallucinations of her dead lover until it was almost too late to remove the tumor that was in her brain. Jack had complained about how everybody on staff compartmentalized their personal traumas until they bubbled over. At this point, Juliet was actually grateful for it, and she was willing to bet Jack was too.

Of course, that might not last too long. Hurley had no doubt told Callie about what Locke had said, and at some point Jack had relayed a lot of what they had learned to Stevens and Karev. They could be counted upon not to tell the entire hospital, but there was a good chance that one of them was going to ask them questions that, right now, Juliet was having a pretty hard time dealing with herself.

She intended to meet with James for dinner at the end of her shift. James had been struggling quite a bit as well, for good reason. Ever since he'd gotten back to civilization, he'd finally managed to put the rest most of the demons that had driven him his entire life. To learn that there had been somebody else who had been driving him – who might very well have put those demons there in the first place – had been a blow that he was having a hard time dealing with.

It therefore came as something of a shock to her when she walked into Joe's a little later, and saw James cheerfully laughing with – Sloan and Lexie Grey?

"Hey Carlson," Mark waved her over, "you never told us your fiancé was this much fun!"

And indeed, James seemed more relaxed than he had been awhile. "How many has he had?" she said in a sotto voce to Lexie.

"Two club sodas," Lexie shook her head. "I didn't know it was possible to have this much fun on so little alcohol."

"I used to down my scotches with the best of them," James told them. "I actually salvaged a 30 year old McCutcheon from the plane, and I never got a chance to drink it." He looked at Juliet. "That's only number 17 on the number of the secrets. I ain't going into the top ten until I get to know these two better and you give me the okay."

Juliet actually gave a small smile. "I've seen some guys at the hospital who were whipped, but I never expected you to be one of them, Ford," Sloane said mockingly.

James looked at him. "I spent the better part of my life destroying people's lives, remember. I was an absolute shit. Therefore, I think it's safe to say, I didn't exactly do a bang-up job running my own life." The good humor was now completely gone. "That's cutting a bit too close to the bone, I guess. " He looked at Juliet. "I guess the evening just took a dark turn."

"You wanna leave, James?" Juliet asked with no judgment.

"I don't know." James told them. "But for the first time in a long time, I really want to go on a bender."

"I know the feeling," Juliet sat down. "I seriously want to get hammered myself."

James looked at Sloane. "Could you give us a minute? It's plane crash stuff."

"Not a problem," He and Lexie gave them some space.

"Guess the last week ain't exactly been a picnic for you, either," James said, taking Juliet's hand.

"How much did you end up telling them?" Juliet asked.

"My life story. Some of the shit-stirring I did when I was in the camp," He lowered his voice. "Nothing too weird."

Juliet sat down next to him. "Was anything on that island _not _weird?"

"We've been spending the last two years lying about it, so I guess that's a hell, yeah," James said slowly. "You want me to call it an early evening, I ain't got no problem with that."

Juliet considered it for a moment. "You looked happy a few minutes ago," she said quietly. "You rarely look that happy with anyone out of the immediate circle."

James put his hand on Juliet's shoulder. "You saw my file, Blondie," he said in a virtual whisper. "You know better than almost anyone just how shit my life was."

Juliet's voice was already low. She now dropped it even further. "You know, I've been wondering about those files more and more. Mikhail and Ben were really good at compiling information from those satellites. But ever since John came back, I've been wondering if those are where the information came from in the first place."

"You mean just how your friend Dr. Alpert knew that Locke's father had ever been in Jaspers, Alabama?" James said quietly. "'Cause Cooper sure as hell never made a police blotter in my state."

"Well, if Locke's telling the truth, we now know how he knew where to look," Juliet said.

James looked at Juliet. "The day we buried my parents, something really weird happened. I started writing the letter that day. Halfway through, my pen ran out of ink. And this guy who I'd never seen before in my life, who sure as hell hadn't been in the church, walked up to me, and gave me a pen. As he handed it to me, he said: 'I'm very sorry for your loss.' Then he walked away. About then, my uncle Doug walked up to me, He picked up my letter. And he told me 'Jimmy, promise me you'll never finish this letter. You got a right to be angry at the person who did this. Who wouldn't be? But what's done is done, So promise you'll let it go."

"I loved my uncle. He had three kids of his own, but before and after that day, he always treated me like a son. So I promised him I wouldn't." He looked at Juliet. "This may be the memory of a child, but I'm pretty sure that's the first time I ever lied to him."

Juliet considered this. "That man, you think it could've been Jacob?"

James looked into the distance. "I really don't know if I would've been able to just let it go even if my pen hadn't run out at that moment. I was in the room when he did, remember. That shit wouldn't have just gone away. But now," He looked down. "I don't know, Jules. I don't know any more."

"I'd tell you not to dwell it, but I've been thinking the same thing ever since John first told us about the Black Rock and Richard." Juliet said sincerely. "Did somebody compile a list on me years ago? Did Jacob come to see him some time when I was vulnerable and start pushing me? Pushing me to that goddamn pile of dirt in the middle of the ocean?"

James actually smiled a little on this. "Watch it, Blondie. I'm starting to rub off on you."

"Hey I was trapped on that island years before you were," Juliet said with a smile. "If anything, I've got a right to be angrier than you do."

"You may be the doctor, but I got a goddamn PhD in being pissed off," James had completely regained his cheerfulness.

"I think you had a Masters in it long before I knew you," Juliet said.

James looked ahead. "You know, Plastic Man and Gray Matter probably think we're crazy." Juliet must've raised an eyebrow because he shrugged. "Spent the last half hour talking with 'em. You gotta admit, it's at least better than what they've got at your hospital."

"It's definitely a lot more accurate," she admitted. "And since when have you ever cared what other people thought?"

"Oh, I don't," James cheerfully admitted. "But I don't have to see them every day. You probably do. And the last thing I want to do is make things messier for you and the Doc. I know you've been very covert in who you've chosen to tell about our three-month tour. So the question is, do we let them in on the action, and if so, how much?"

Juliet thought for a moment. Like Jack, she had been careful about who she shared her story about the island – for the obvious reason that it really contradicted the narrative that the Oceanics had been floating for the past two years. She'd mostly trusted the people that Jack and Hurley did, and she'd given a few details to Addison and Miranda over the last few months, but beyond that no one knew she had been on the island. Furthermore, based on what Jack had told her, Sloan and Lexie knew the absolute least of everyone else at the hospital about what had happened on the plane crash or details about the other survivors in general. To let them in on the secret could very well open a Pandora's Box that she really didn't want top unless she had talked to the rest of her friends.

Then again James, who was notorious for not trusting anybody before the crash, had been willing to spill some of his greater vulnerabilities over the past hour or so. "What have you told them? Really?" she asked.

"I told them what a shit I was before and for a long time after the crash," James said. "I've revealed my secrets. None of yours. And nothing that they couldn't find out about our friends by doing a simple internet search."

"Nothing 'other' than that?" Juliet asked.

James got the reference. "Honestly, I think they're more interested in how we survived the plane crash than what it was like on the island at this point. But, at some point, they are going to want to know more than that. The docs at your hospital really want to get up in everybody's business."

"Which is the opposite of what life was like on the beach as I recall," Juliet reminded him.

"Fair point," James looked at Juliet. "So I ask you again, you want me to call an early night?"

Juliet thought about it for a while. "I'm not ready to share my secrets yet," she said slowly. "But from what I can see, it's been doing you a world of good."

"Might do you some good too," James said with a gentleness very few people would've thought him capable of before.

"I will," Juliet assured him. "But not tonight and not with them. Not yet."

James looked over at the table where Lexie and Mark were talking. "I'm going to hope that you're good enough people not to eavesdrop," he said quietly.

"I don't meddle in other people's conversations," Mark assured them.

"Just in their sex lives?" Juliet asked wryly.

"I'm a reformed man now," Mark said. "It's a process, but it's been working."

"So what are you gonna tell us?" Lexie asked.

James thought for a moment. "There was a lot of weird shit on that island," he began slowly. "Some of it I'm not sure I can talk to you about yet. And some you won't believe. So for now, I'm going to tell you one that's gonna take some getting used too."

"Really," Lexie said.

"It's about a boar I thought was out to get me, the only wild animal hunt I ever went on, and the last drinking game I've been a very long time," James said slowly.

"That does sound strange," Mark admitted.

James looked at them. "Believe me, it barely broke the top ten."


	16. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

"All right," Locke said slowly. "I think I've stalled long enough."

"I wouldn't exactly say you've been stalling, John," Sun said helpfully.

It was true. John had spent the last three weeks filling in much of the blanks that the rest of the survivors had not known. Details about the Dharma Initiative, just what the Temple did, how Alex had ended up with the Others, and that there were followers of the island and Jacob in civilization. But in a sense, he had been stalling on the part that they all needed to know the details about. None of them had objected, considering that they had all dealt with similar issues in sharing information themselves.

"None of you have exactly been thrilled with what I told you about Jacob before," Locke said quietly. "And as I've said, the more I heard about him, the less inclined I was to like him, much less follow his every command. But he had answers, and I needed to know them. So I was patient. And on September 22 – yes exactly one year to the day of our plane crashing – Richard told me that I was worthy of seeing him."

"Alpert had told you where he was months ago," James reminded him. "I'm a little surprised you hadn't stormed the giant foot long before this."

"I didn't know if he'd be there," Locke admitted. "And I wasn't sure he didn't have some ability to cloud men's minds. I was never able to find the lighthouse or the cabin again. I thought the remnants of the statue might end up being the same way. Or for that matter, the monster might try to stop me."

"You thought you needed permission," Jack said quietly.

"Even after everything I had learned, I was going to follow the path of the island. So I waited, and I went."

"How long did it take you to get there?" Jin asked. "When Sun and I took Sayid to the other side of the island, it took us nearly three hours of sailing before we were even able to find it. Even then, we only saw it from a distance."

"Nearly half a day," Locke admitted. "I probably could've gotten there quicker if I'd hurried. But part of me really was terrified to meet the man behind the curtain. The last time I had tried to see Jacob, I'd witnessed a terrible force of psychic power. I wasn't entirely sure whether that was actually Jacob, but it had terrified me at the time. I didn't think he'd be reasonable."

"Was it even Jacob?" Hurley asked.

Locke chose not to answer right away. "At sunset, I finally reached the outskirts of the foot. And there, standing at the beach, looking out at the water was a man with sandy hair, a white shirt, white slacks, and sandy blonde hair. I had no idea what to say to him. And that's actually good. Because when he turned around, I wasn't capable of speaking to him."

"Why, Mr. Locke?" Walt asked

"Because I'd seen him before. In the real world."

This shouldn't have come as a shock given everything that Locke had told them about the lighthouse, but confirmation was something completely different. "Where?" Jack asked.

Locke was looking in the distance. "I had passed out from the pain. That's what they told me. But I'd had what seemed to be one foggy memory between then and waking up in the hospital. A man was standing over me. He had his hand on my chest. And he said to me: "I'm sorry this happened to you." Locke looked at Jack. "It was him."

All of them took this very hard. None more so than Jack. "Do you think he brought you back from the dead?" It was a question that none of them would've thought Jack capable of asking even a few months ago.

"I don't know, Jack," Locke said. "If he had that kind of power, I can't understand why he wouldn't have used it so I could walk again. But based on what Richard told me, maybe there are limitations even to his power."

Jin and Sun didn't seem to be listening. The moment Locke had finished describing Jacob, they had started talking to each other Korean. Locke looked at them. "Did you see him too?"

The two of them looked at each other. Jin finally spoke. "At the reception after our wedding, when the guests were offering their well wishes, there was someone there who looked like he was American. He walked up to us, touched us both on the shoulder and in perfect Korean told us: 'Never to take your love for granted. Neither of us knew who he was."

"Son of a bitch," James said in a voice that was so reminiscent of the old Sawyer it was scary. "That was him. At my parents funeral. He's the guy who gave me the pen."

James was incapable of talking coherently for a couple of minutes, so Juliet briefly filled them all in on what he had told her a couple of days ago. Kate walked up to him, and touched him on the shoulder. "I'm sorry, James."

"Don't be, Freckles," James said bitterly. "I'm guessing that some time he paid a visit to you too."

Sayid had been quiet for a few moments, clearly thinking hard. "Does he sound familiar to you?" Locke asked.

"When I was in Heathrow about to get on my flight, there was a panhandler just outside the main entrance," he said slowly. "I dropped a pound in his guitar case, and he looked up at me and said, very clearly, "You won't need this where you're going.' Less than five minutes after that, the CIA caught up with me. You all know where that took me. "

Jack, who had an excellent memory, had been racking his brains trying to think if he'd ever met this man before. Then in his mind, he heard a voice in his head. "All it needed was a little push," he whispered to himself.

James momentarily looked up. "You too, Doc?"

"My first solo surgery," he said softly. Then he told the true version of the story he'd told to Kate within minutes of meeting her, and who he finally given the real one a few days before they'd gotten married. How he'd cut the dural sac, how he'd panicked, how his father had told him to close his eyes, count to five, and then fix her. How Christian had congratulated him afterward, and how he'd berated his father for not having any faith in him.

"I'd gone to get a chocolate bar after it was done," he said. "The candy bar stuck, and I banged the machine. After I basically told my dad to go tot hell, I stormed off, and this man came up to me, and said one of them must be mine. I thanked him, and he told me: 'I guess all it needed was a little push'. He looked at Locke. "I never thought about who he was, but he matches your description."

"I know how you're all feeling right now," Locke said quietly. "Confused, upset, and above all else, angry. I know that I'd believed that the island was my destiny. But I guess some part of me was still angry about not having a choice. Because part of me really wanted to hurt him. Badly."

"What changed your mind?" Hurley said quietly.

"He talked to me."

**WHOOOOSH**

"Hello, John."

Jacob was supremely calm. Locke supposed he shouldn't be surprised, considering that he was supposed to be this benevolent force. But if it was meant to make him feel at ease, it didn't.

"I'm glad you came," Jacob remained as placid as ever.

"Did I have a choice?" Locke found himself saying. "Because based on everything I've seen the last few months, it's beginning to seem more and more like I never did."

Jacob's expression clouded over. "Would it make you feel better if I told you for much of my life, I felt the same way? And I've lived a very, very long time."

John considered that for a moment. "That's an excuse, not a reason," he found himself saying. "Richard told me some of your story, and I am sympathetic, but sympathy only carries things so far. I've been on this island for a year. I realize that it is a magical place, and that it needs to be protected. And I've done some terrible things at the cost of protecting it. I did them because I thought it was my destiny. But right now, I don't think I ever had one."

"I know how you feel, John." Jacob told him. "Any chance I had for freedom was taken from me thousands of years ago."

Any retort John might have had died on his lips. He knew that Jacob had probably been the guardian of this island for a long time. But when you considered just _how _long it had been, it was staggering. "You mean you haven't always watched this island?"

Jacob turned around and looked at the ocean. "When I was just a child, my mother told me and my brother that this island was all there was. That there was nothing across the sea. I believed her. My brother had doubts."

That was a lot to take in. "You have a brother?"

"He was my mother's favorite." Jacob said quietly. "He was the one who always asked questions. Who she thought was special."

John had heard that word so many times, but never with the kind of regret mixed with despair that had been in that word.

"Then one day, other people came to this island. Mother warned us that they were dangerous, and that this island needed to be protected from them. She said that one day one of us would have to do it. I didn't want to be that person. But I wanted my mother to love me."

Locke had a feeling that this wasn't a story that Jacob had ever told before, not even to Richard. But even as he listened, he could hear his own doubts coming in to his head.

"A few years after that, my brother saw someone. Someone who told him that she was our real mother." Jacob paused. "Someone I couldn't see."

It was beginning to sound that even Jacob had once been a man, and that he had never been as special as everyone thought.

"My brother had a huge fight with my mother, and said that he wanted to leave the island. Mother that he could never do that. That night, he packed up his things and ran over to join the people on the other side of the island." Jacob turned to John. "He begged me to come with him. He told me he didn't want to be alone. And I really wanted to go with him. But despite everything that I had heard, I still wanted my mother to love me. And I don't think she ever really did."

Locke was beginning to think that might be part of the reason he and so many of them might have been chosen. Their families had been broken - certainly his had been splintered from the beginning. Then another thought occurred to him, based on what he had seen in the lighthouse. Could their families – their lives – have been broken because of what Jacob had done? And that seemed even more horrible than everything that had come before. If James, for example, had even suspected this, he would have gutted Jacob where he stood. Locke, who had a knife on him, thought the impulse might have crossed his mind.

"For thirty years, my brother lived with those people, and I lived with my mother," Jacob looked at him. "We lived in the caves that you and the rest of your people set up camp at for awhile. But I still saw him every once in awhile. To see how he was doing. And then one day, he told me he was going to leave. And that upset my mother."

Was this what everything in the island had come down to? Some kind of contest to see if 'Mom likes you best?' Even though he knew he was being paid witness to a story that no one else had heard, Locke was becoming increasingly bitter. It was like learning that Prometheus had given people fire so that Zeus would love him more.

"Something happened that day. I never did learn what. But that night, my mother took me to a place I'd only been once in my life. A place I've almost never gone back to since then."

For the first time since Jacob had begun his story, Locke felt he was genuinely getting new information. "What place?"

"She called it the heart of the island. Where everything begins and ends. And that it was my job to protect it." Jacob looked genuinely angry for the first time. "I told her I didn't want it. That I'd never wanted it. And that she was only giving it to me because I was all she had left."

And now, the pieces fit. "That's what all this is about, isn't it?" Locke said slowly. "That's what everybody who's come to this island has been coming for. A job interview."

Jacob didn't answer.

"Thousands of years, you've brought people to this island. They've come to this place, not knowing where they are or why they're here." Locke said quietly. "You ask them to find their way to you, but you never tell them what it's about. How many people have died because of your choices? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Or have you ever bothered to count?"

"If I tell people what to do, it's meaningless." Jacob said slowly.

"You didn't seem to have a problem pushing us to come to this island in the first place." Locke was now genuinely furious. "My entire life, I've been being pushed by you. Humiliated, battered and broken."

"You're wrong about that," Jacob said. "You weren't broken because I picked you. I'd picked you because you were broken. I didn't pluck anybody who came here out of a happy existence. Everybody who came here, came because they needed this place just as much as it needed them."

Locke was moved by this. And for the old John Locke, it would've been enough for him to swear devotion. But he'd seen too much over the past year. "That's very touching, Jacob. And did the 253 people who died on impact so that me and my friends could get here, were they just the cost of our passage? I appreciate that you let me come here, but did you have to kill so many people for it to happen?"

Jacob didn't answer. Maybe he hadn't talked to anybody else besides Richard for so long he didn't know how to have a conversation with someone who challenged him. Maybe the cost had never occurred to him."

"I'm a man of faith, Jacob. Which has never been easy for me." Locke said quietly. "So the fact that everything that's happened to me has happened for a reason, I've known that for awhile. You can understand that I'm a little disturbed to know that you don't have a good reason for this to have happened to everybody else."

Jacob looked genuinely sorrowful for the first time.

"You know, when I went to that cabin where Ben said he'd been talking to you all this time, I was infuriated. Because I thought I'd been lied to all this time. Then when I thought I saw you there, I thought there might have been something to it." Locke looked at him. "I actually feel sorry for Ben. He spent thirty years following you, and he never even got to see you. I should've told him that you should never meet your heroes."

Locke turned around.

"I was never in the cabin."

That got Locke's attention. "What are you talking about?"

"I told you I had to protect this island." Jacob said quietly. "Aren't you the least bit curious as to who I have to protect it _from?" _

Locke turned back around. "I thought those who would try to corrupt it. People like Charles Widmore –"

"Widmore was a threat, but he was never the danger." Jacob told him. "You know what the real danger is… because he approached you early on. He knew as much about you as I did. That's why he tried to mark you."

Now Locke was genuinely staggered. "You're talking about the monster?"

"I'm talking about my brother, John."

**WHOOOSH**

Understandably, this caused something of an outburst.

"So you're telling me," James seemed to be recovering from the brown study he'd been in ever since he'd realized where he'd seen Jacob from, "the thing that killed so many of us on the island, that made our lives as much as hell as that bug-eyed bastard, was Jake's brother?"

Kate, who'd been fairly quiet for most of John's story, spoke up and sounded more bitter than they'd ever remembered hearing her be. "All of the shit we went through all our lives, all the family drama we've been through, and we have to wade through this guy's crap?"

Jack put his arm around his wife, but he was nearly as wound up as she was. He'd been having a lot of trouble dealing with what Locke had been telling him about Jacob, and this was just becoming the cherry on the crap sundae. "Can I be honest, John? I was in denial about a lot of what happened on the island, but even if I had been the kind of guy who believed in destiny, I still wouldn't have bought into this."

Locke nodded. "I'd been making myself ready to believe that there was evil on the island. The monster was a lot to take in, and realizing that the monster was as close to the devil as we could find, I could deal with that. But hearing this from Jacob, it made me wonder if this was what might life was, whether being conned by my father all my life was just preparation to be conned by God. And best case scenario, Jacob sounded an awful like the Old Testament version. You know, the one lets all kinds of bad things happen to even the people who worship, and then shrugs it off when you ask why it's happening."

"You must have a world of patience, John," James told him. "Cause I got tell you, if his brother had made the same offer he made Alpert, and I knew his story, I wouldn't have hesitated."

"What was he called?" Hurley asked softly.

"Excuse me."

"Smokey had to have a name. Kind of seems pointless to keep calling him the Monster."

Locke sighed. "I got the feeling that his Mother – or the woman who called herself that – never even bothered to give her son a name."

"So his mother loved him so much, she didn't even bother to give him the most basic levels of love," Juliet was starting to sound upset herself, and she was a master at reining her temper in. "I agree with my fiancé and I agree with Kate. I'm starting to get really angry that I spent three years of my life in the middle of some kind of thousand year old conflict that probably could've been resolved with a good family therapist!"

"Well, I'm glad to know you at least gave him a piece of your mind," Jack said sharply. "The John Locke we knew on the island would've just patted him on the shoulder, and asked what he could do next."

"And I have to tell you I was still a little irked that Jacob had been nice enough to tell me his life story, but hadn't bothered to tell me why I was on the island in the first place." Locke pointed out. "I might've been willing to agree with him that we needed this place – I certainly couldn't argue otherwise – but I really was starting to resent on _how _he'd gotten me here. I was feeling a little guilty that I hadn't bothered to pass any of the tests Richard had set up for me in my childhood, but he didn't have to let me get thrown out a window and then spend all my time in a wheelchair getting set up for one more giant humiliation."

"That's right," Hurley said suddenly. "When I was doing my census on the island I asked what you were doing Australia, and you said that you were looking for something. You seemed so sure of yourself, it really scared the bejesus out of me, and I never got around to asking any follow-up questions."

"It's alright, Hugo," John said. "We were all dealing with more important matters at the time."

"Besides, it's not like _any _of us ever asked any follow-ups back then," James actually sounded a little better now.

"So why did you decide to go on a walkabout?" Jack asked. "I mean, no offense John, but you have to have known that it couldn't have ended well."

"A few months after going through physical therapy, this orderly came up to me and said he'd take me back to my room." Locke said slowly. "He told me that I was a remarkable man. I told him that I was a cripple. Then he said: "You survived an eight-story fall. That makes you very special."

"This wasn't Jacob or Richard was it?" Sun asked.

Locke shook his head. "It was a man I'd never seen before or since. African-American, closely cropped black hair, very solemn. He vaguely resembled my first physical therapist, so I was inclined to distrust him. I told him I needed to get back to my room. And he said: "What you need, Mr. Locke, is a walkabout' I was as dismissive of it as you were, even when he told me it was a great spiritual journey. He said he'd thought he was someone, then he went on it, and realized he was something else. When I told him he was an orderly, he told me: 'I'm not an orderly. I get people where they need to be. Go on that walkabout, and when I see you again, you'll owe me one.'

"And you have no idea who that man was," Sayid asked. "He wasn't one of the Others."

"If he was, I never saw him on the island," Locke told him. "My battered mind, which needed some reason to go forward, spent the next three and a half years finding everything I could about what a walkabout was and trying to train for it. I convinced myself that was my destiny."

"I hate to tell you this, John, but no reputable organization would have let you on one," Jack said quietly. "No insurance company would have allowed for it."

"Which is why I admitted the tiny detail that I'd been in a wheelchair for four years," Locke shook his head. "I kept telling myself stories about men and women who'd done extraordinary things, about an amputee who climbed some of the highest mountains in the world, and whenever anybody even hinted at the idea that it was impossible, I just 'Don't tell me what I can't do'. I kept that mantra in my head all the way to Sydney. I even shouted it at the men as he said that there was no way he could let me on the bus."

Claire looked at John. "Well, whoever that man was, he was working for the island in some capacity," she said softly. "He put that idea of the walkabout in your head, knowing that it would get you to Sydney and put you on our plane."

"Kind of makes me want to punch him in the face," Kate said gently.

"I never got around to asking Jacob if that man worked for him," Locke told them. "In one sense it mattered, in a larger one, it didn't. Jacob had wanted me to come to the island. I'd spent a lot of time avoiding a direct invitation. Part of me actually felt guilty. I figured maybe if I'd just followed his breadcrumbs, he wouldn't have had to call your plane to the island, and so many people wouldn't have died."

"I'm pretty sure our names were on that wheel for a reason, John Boy," James reminded him. "We can blame a lot of shit on you, but I'm pretty damn sure we were getting on that island one way or another. Besides, didn't the Big Kahuna say as much to you?"

Locke nodded.

"Let's return to the point," Sayid finally said. "How did his brother become the monster?"

"Believe me, that was preeminent in my mind," John told them. "Which is why it bugged the hell out of me that I couldn't get a clear answer. All he would tell me is that he'd had a moment of weakness. And because of that weakness, he had made things far worse. For himself, for the island, and for the world."

**WHOOSH**

"All right then, " Locke asked. "Then can you tell me? Why are we all here? What is the real reason you brought us all to the island?"

Jacob turned away and looked at the water. "You know why, John," he said in that benevolent way that Locke still didn't fully trust.

"Richard said that when you brought him here, you said that it was to prove a point to your brother," Locke said quietly. "That was never the real reason, was it?"

"I thought it was," Jacob said quietly. "But the reason is more complicated. My brother wants nothing more than to leave this island. He thinks that the only way he can do that is to kill me, and anyone else who gets in his way. For millennia, he's been trying to find a way around that."

"A loophole?" Locke suddenly said.

Jacob appeared not to notice his choice of words. "That's why he's been trying to kill everyone I've brought here. He always believed that man would act a certain way. 'They come. They fight. They destroy. They corrupt. And it always ends the same.'

Those were some of the most cynical words John had ever heard on this island. He couldn't understand why Jacob seemed to be saying them so – fondly.

"He's been letting you act this way ever since." Jacob went on. "You have to have been wondering why someone with all that power didn't destroy you the same way he's killed so many others."

In fact, he had never had considered this, but now that he thought about it, why hadn't the monster come out of the jungle and killed them that night after the plane crash when they were all disorganized? Why had the only person who had been a direct victim of this creature been Eko? "You did something to us," Locke said harshly. "It wasn't enough that you've been watching us all this time. You've been visiting us."

Jacob didn't deny it. "There was no point in you coming here, if I couldn't keep you safe from him."

"So stop stalling and give me a direct answer for once," Locke said. "Why am I here?'

Jacob finally turned around. "When my mother gave me this job, she made me undergo a ritual. When it was over, she said: 'Now you're like me'. A lot happened very quickly after that, so I didn't understand what that meant. Now I do."

For the first time, Jacob didn't sound like a benevolent deity. He sounded like a man – a very tired man. "It's been very lonely all these years. And I know that some day he will find a way to get past me. What I need, John, is someone to take my place. But I can't just force it on you. You have to choose to do it."

Locke considered this for a few moments. "That's very… generous of you, Jacob," he said slowly. "After years of manipulating our lives so that we have to come to this island, at that last moment, you say we have to volunteer for it."

"I realize that you're angry, John," Jacob said.

"How understanding. You know, a year ago, if you had offered me this same job, I would have taken it without hesitation. Even after all the stories I've been told by your disciples, part of me still wanted to serve you." Locke paused. "Now that I've finally met you, and I've heard everything, I just don't think you're any more reliable than anybody else."

"So what are you going to do?" Jacob seemed only vaguely interested, but now John knew that was a lie.

"I've gotten into so much trouble in my life by not listening to people," Locke said. "All this time I've shouted at the world 'Don't tell me what I can't do', even though some of the time, it might have helped if I'd listened instead. You've told me your story, and I admit it's convincing. Indeed, everyone who's told me about this island has been convincing. But maybe I need to hear the voice of someone who doesn't feel the same way about the island that everyone else does. Someone who really might have a good reason for doing everything they've done."

Now Jacob finally lost his look of bland concern and seemed genuinely alarmed. "You can't seriously be thinking of talking to _him, _are you?"

"Why not?" Locke asked. "He thinks I'm special, too. He hasn't tried to kill me. And, if you're telling the truth, there's no way he can actually hurt me, right? Besides, I can't take this job without at least hearing a counteroffer? I'd say goodbye, but I know where to find you."

He walked off and didn't look back.

After he had gone about a mile and was sure the foot was out of sight, he turned around. "All right," he said quietly. "I know you're never that far away. In a sense you've never really stopped following us. I think it's time you stopped showing the theatricality of your brother and just had a normal conversation with me. You've been trying long enough."

There was a long pause. Then he heard the sound of exploding and chains rattling. Only this time, after about a minute, they stopped.

And then on the beach came the exact man Richard had described meeting at the Black round nearly a hundred and forty years ago. Black shirt, dark pants, salt and pepper beard, black hair, black sandals – all about the same style as Jacob's.

"In all my years on the island, I don't think anyone's ever asked to talk to me," the Man in Black said.

Locke nodded. "So let's talk."


	17. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

"You said you never met him," Jack, not unexpectedly, challenged John immediately.

"Well, given how hostile you all were when you found out what Jacob had been doing to us all our lives, I didn't exactly think you'd be open to hearing me out when I told you I had a dialogue with the smoke monster," Locke admitted. "I told you I'd been stalling. This was the main reason."

James seemed genuinely confused now. "Based on everything you'd heard before, you really thought the monster would give you the truth?"

"Not particularly," Locke told him. "But at this point in my time on the island, that hardly made him different from anyone else, myself included."

None of them could exactly argue with him at that. "Didn't they say that he would infect you or something if you listened to him?" Kate asked.

"The Man in Black had said the exact same thing about Jacob to Richard," Locke reminded her. "I'd given up the idea that there was some universal truth about anybody knowing about how the island worked. There were only two creatures on this island old enough to know. Jacob would probably only tell me the truth if I accepted his offer. I wanted to hear the other side of it."

"Did he give them to you?" Hurley, as always, was the voice of calm.

"A lot more than I expected."

**WHOOOSH**

"They've all told you not to trust me," the Man in Black said.

"I spent the first part of my time on this island listening to Ben's story," Locke told him. "You can't be any worse than him."

"We're going to have some major differences of opinion about this place," The Man in Black didn't even raise his voice. "You think its paradise; I think it's a prison."

"If what Jacob told me is true, you have a very good reason to feel that way. Otherwise, you wouldn't want to kill him so badly." Locke pointed out.

The Man in Black looked sad. "I don't want to. I just want to leave this place. But he'll never let me do it."

"And killing your brother is your only way out?" Locke said quietly.

For a moment, John could see the family resemblance between the brothers. The Man in Black had the same look of melancholy Jacob did. "She always loved me. I didn't realize until it was too late just how disturbed that love was."

"My mother was very disturbed, too," John said.

"Your mother didn't kill the woman who gave birth to you," The Man in Black said calmly. "She didn't lie to you your entire childhood saying there was nothing across the sea. She never answered a single one of your questions about this place, forcing you to live thirty years in exile with horrendous people just to get the hope of leaving."

Locke took this in. "Jacob did omit a lot of that information."

"He always did have trouble lying," There may have been fondness in that tone. "I wish he would've come with me when I left. All of this, it could've been avoided if he would've chosen me over her."

"Why did all this happen?" Locke asked quietly. "How did this struggle begin?"

"I spent years trying to find a way to leave this island," The Man in Black said. "Finally, after years of struggling, we found this place where metal acted strangely. We dug a well, and we built a wheel, and I found a way to harness the island, so that I could finally leave." He looked into the distance. "He must have told her. That's why she came. She said that she just wanted to say goodbye. And despite everything she'd done, I still wanted to leave with her love."

"She knocked me senseless. I must've been unconscious for hours. When I came to, the well had been filled in, the village where the people had lived was burning, and everyone else was dead. I was filled with rage. I went back to the caves and tore their home apart. She came back…"

He trailed off. He looked like he was about to cry. "I put the dagger through her." He seemed to be choking. "She said: 'Thank you'. I begged to know why she wouldn't let me leave. She said" and now Locke did see a tear, "she loved me."

There seemed to be no way for John to just walk up to an immortal deity, however many evil deeds he had committed, and console him. So John just waited.

"Jacob saw me standing over her. I tried to explain, but he was too angry. He knocked me senseless. And…" The Man in Black trailed off. "I never did figure out what he did me. All that I know is that later that day, I woke up in the jungle. I've never been solid since then."

"He took your body," Locke quoted Richard.

"You understand more than all of the others," the Man in Black said. "You know what it's like to have been a prisoner in your own form, never able to touch the ground with your own feet. Not able to enjoy the pleasures that every other person in this world does. Sometimes, I would give anything just to be able to reach for the trees and eat an orange."

Locke looked at him. "I do feel more sympathy for you than I did for Jacob," he began slowly. "That is severely muted, however, by the fact that you've spent thousands of years murdering everybody who set foot on the island. I can understand why you want to kill Jacob so badly, but how does that justify the murder of hundreds of innocents?"

The Man in Black looked at him. "Jacob didn't tell you, did he?"

"I suspect there are a lot of things that he didn't tell me. That's why I'm talking to you in the first place. Why have you been trying to kill all of us since we got here?"

"I couldn't kill you," the Man in Black said. "Jacob's spent a lifetime making sure of that."

"Let's assume I believe you," Locke said. "And considering I don't think you dragged me into the jungle to say hello, I have my doubts. Why couldn't you kill me?"

"Because you're a Candidate." He seemed to be capitalizing the word.

"A Candidate for what?" Locke asked,

"I think you know, John."

"Maybe I want to hear someone in authority say it." Locke fixed the Man in Black with a stare, and he retreated a little.

"Jacob has spent years leaving the island, picking and choosing people so that they would come here. Once they came here, he intended to offer them his job. To be Jacob's chosen successor."

"And you don't want that." Locke said.

"For centuries it was easy," The Man in Black said. "Jacob just persuaded people from a distance. Brought them here and just stepped aside. After Richard agreed to work for him, though, Jacob realized that he had to change his approach. So he did the one thing I couldn't. Leave the island and look for candidates. Once he found them, he would mark them. And once they had his protection, there was nothing I could do to them, even when they came to the island. He had faith that you would be ready. He didn't realize just how corrupt you were."

Locke realized that all of the names that had been crossed out on the lighthouse had been killed, but not by the monster. The Man in Black was right. They had done an excellent job of paring the field all by themselves.

"Why haven't you killed the Others?" Locke asked.

"Jacob's supplicants. They've grown smarter over the years. I think you've seen that they've found ways to protect themselves even from me."

"And Eko? He wasn't a candidate."

"Why do you think Jacob let that plane come all the way here?" The Man in Black shook his head. "Other than you, he's the only person in centuries who wasn't scared when I looked him in the eye."

"But you had no problem killing him a few weeks later," Locke pointed out.

"I didn't think I could," the Man in Black admitted. "But he wasn't like you, John. He had faith, but he didn't believe in destiny. He showed weakness for the briefest of moments. I did what I had to do. If I hadn't, Jacob would have been able to claim him for good."

Locke paused for a minute, and asked the question that was on his mind. "You were in the cabin."

"It may surprise you to learn this, John, but Ben was once as easy to manipulate as you were," the Man in Black said casually. "One night, after the Purge, I came to him in a dream as someone he felt sorry for killing. I gave him instructions, and he followed them. I knew how much he wanted Jacob's acceptance, so I used it to work on him. You of all people should appreciate that."

"And then when I showed up, you did that to try and get to me," Locke said disdainfully. "So that you could win me over the same way you did when you appeared to me in the jungle."

The Man in Black didn't deny it. "I had a plan, John. One that took so much time and devotion it made Sawyer's and Ben's cons seem like short cons by comparison. I needed to get to Jacob. I needed everything to fall a certain way, and most importantly, I needed you and I needed Ben. So yes, I used you. But Jacob did, too."

This was a lot to take in, to put it mildly. "Was I ever really special?" Locke asked softly.

"I was special once," The Man in Black said kindly. "I can tell you from experience. It's not as much fun as you think it is."

Locke sat down. "So what happens next?" he asked. "Now that I've met the man behind the curtain. Do I get killed?"

"John, I can't kill you any more than I could Jacob," the Man in Black said. "And as hard as it may be for you to believe, I only kill to survive. I don't enjoy it anymore than anyone else. You may think that I've had some grand purpose to all this, but it's only developed fairly recently. Jacob's the schemer. He's the one who brought you here. He's the one responsible."

"So those are my choices," Locke said quietly. "You or him."

"Those have been the only choices, John," the Man in Black said quietly.

And then, something occurred to him. Something that hadn't before. "Actually, you're both wrong," he said with a certainty he hadn't in awhile.

The Man in Black was clearly unsettled by this. "What are you talking about?"

"I mean, there's someone else I have to hear from," Locke said, as he stood up. "They haven't been alive as long as you have, but they sure as hell are a lot wiser and more sensible than you and your brother have ever been."

"I think you need to think this over, John."

Locke turned around. "Did you ever have a name?"

This clearly took the Man in Black by surprise. "What?"

"You've been around for thousands of years. Haven't you ever had a name?"

"I – my mother never gave me one," The Man in Black said.

"Well, think on that for awhile," Locke said as he walked away. "Maybe if you actually had one, none of this would've had to happen."

**WHOOOSH**

James recovered from this quickest. "I gotta hand it to you, John," he said admiringly. "I knew you had big ones, but I didn't think they were big enough to tell both God _and _the Devil to go to Hell."

"They may have been immortal and spiritual, but having spent time with both of them, I'm certain that neither _was_ God," Locke told them all. "For that matter, they'd both admitted that they were human first, and that they'd spent a normal lifetime being human. They'd just spent so long being immortal neither one of them could remember what that was like."

"And that made up for the fact that they'd been manipulating us all our lives?" Sayid, quite understandably, was still irate.

"Why do you think I'd walked away from both of them?" Locke reminded them. "They were both tremendous flawed and they'd both made horrible choices even before they became what they were. Their mother took away their choices from. She clearly loved one brother more than the other, and we've been paying for it ever since."

Claire, the only one of them who had a sibling, was a little shocked by this. "That's what all of this was about?"

"Their mother was clearly disturbed. That may have been the one thing both brothers agreed on," Locke reminded them. "She clearly favored the Man in Black more. That's the reason she made it so he could never leave the island. She clearly didn't have any problems with her _other _son doing that. Then, when it was clear that she had lost him forever, she put Jacob in charge of the island despite the fact that he never wanted it."

"And I thought that my mother was a bitch," Kate mumbled to herself.

"She's the one who clearly knew all the answers," Locke went on. "And it's clear she probably had the same duties Jacob had. Maybe for even longer than he did. Maybe that loneliness drove her crazy. I don't know, and in the end, it probably doesn't matter that much."

"That's a real open-minded way to look at the person who's made our lives their bitch for so long," Michael turned to his son. "Sorry I had to use that word."

"I think it fits Dad," Walt said.

"Look, there is only so far back you can go to draw a line to where this all started," Locke said firmly. "Everybody wants to blame everything else on what has happened in their past. But there has to come a point – and I admit that me saying this has to sound a little far-fetched – that you have to draw a line in the sand, and just say: "Enough, I've been dealt a bad hand, and now I have to find a way to play with the cards I've been dealt."

"It's like hearing that an atheist found the face of Jesus in a tortilla," Hurley admitted. "You know, only the other way around."

"I'm amazed they both just let you walk away from them," Kate said quietly.

"Jacob said I had to make my own choice. The other one said he couldn't hurt me. They couldn't exactly get in my way. That's the one thing they both agreed on."

"So who did you go to see?" Jack asked, even though he had a pretty good idea.

"The only people who were left on this entire rock who were capable of making this decision rationally." Locke told them. "Which was ironic, because they believed in the island as much as I did."

**WHOOOSH**

Locke had to admit he was afraid of approaching Bernard and Rose. It had been a few months since he'd had his last real conversation with her, and he didn't know whether her husband bore a grudge. He imagined that most of the survivors probably still did, even back in civilization.

Finding them was less tricky than he thought it would be. After walking through the jungle for half an hour, he heard a familiar bark.

"Hey Vincent," he said gently, bending down to pet the dog he'd help find just a few days after the plane had crashed. "How's it going?"

Not for the first time he found himself wondering if Vincent was special, too. Walt had always seemed to be safe whenever Vincent was around, and some part of Locke wondered if they had kept Vincent on that raft somehow, would the entire cycle of events that had followed been avoidable? Even given the level of faith he had in the island that seemed incredibly unlikely, but Locke still believed that might be possible.

"I kind of wondered if I'd ever see you again." Locke looked up, and there was Bernard. He had a scruff of a beard and his hair was a little longer, but his face was basically unchanged from the man he'd known months earlier.

Locke raised his arms, only half in jest.

"My wife is a very charitable person," Bernard said neutrally. "She said she forgave you months ago."

"And you?"

Bernard paused. "How good is your aim?" The puzzlement must've shown on Locke's face because the man elaborated. "Rose was about ten feet away from Naomi when you threw that knife into her back. I'm not wild about the fact that she could've died if you'd aimed a degree or two to the left."

Locke considered this for a moment. "Why did you agree to help Jack and the rest get rescued?" he asked. "Rose told me that the two of you were never going to leave the island."

"Jin had helped reunite with my wife," Bernard said simply. "I wasn't going to leave him alone to face possibly being killed. And everybody else wanted to leave. I wasn't going to stop them."

"You did what you did to help what was precious to you," Locke told him. "I was doing the same thing." He paused. "All things considered not only did I take the wrong approach, but I'm not even sure the thing I did it all for is worth it in the end."

Bernard's tone lightened a bit. "Pretty big admission on your part," he admitted.

"The only person I planned to stop was Naomi," Locke told him. "I shot at Jack; I didn't try to kill him. And I certainly would never hurt anyone else on the island. Especially not your wife."

Another long pause. "I got tired of these kinds of measuring contestants when Jack and Sawyer were still on the island."

Locke wasn't that surprised to know that Rose hadn't been that far away.

"Does he pass your test, Rambo?" Rose said softly.

Bernard smiled for the first time since Locke had arrived. "Yes he does, dear."

"Well, then why don't you let him join us for supper?"

**LLLLLL**

In the past several months, Rose and Bernard had built their own little jungle hideaway – a lean-to made up of bamboo and branches that still looked a lot better than all the lean-to's they had built on the beach. "People spend their whole lives looking for a place to retire to, so we built our own."

They'd built some traps in the woods to catch animals, Bernard would go out fishing every day, and they'd go and pick fruit off the trees. If anything, they seemed to be living more comfortably than they ever had when they were living together those first few months after the crash.

"How have you been managing the wildlife?" Locke said subtly.

"That thing hasn't bothered us once in the middle of the night," Bernard said slowly. "You have something to do with that?"

"I doubt it," Locke admitted. "In fact, given what I know now, I'm stunned that thing hasn't torn your place down a hundred times over."

"I'm guessing you found out about the island's secrets," Rose told him. "More stuff that you wish you never learned?"

"Sort of, but at least this time I've got specific people to be angry at."

"I thought you'd reached some kind of truce with them," Bernard said.

"Yes, just not with the people who brought us here." Locke took a deep breath and told Bernard and Rose everything he knew about Jacob and his brother. How long they'd been on the island, what they'd been fighting about for centuries, how they'd dragged everybody who had come to this island into their war, often without any of them knowing it – and now, how both sides seemed to want him to join them.

Rose and Bernard took this in with greater equanimity than anyone else who'd heard (or would hear) the story.

"Well, I knew I knew these people had a purpose, I just didn't know it was so crazy," Bernard said quietly.

"Have these two poor boys even tried talking it out over the millennia?" Rose asked.

"I get the feeling they have over the years," Locke said slowly. "And just looking at the two of them, they're long past resolving this peacefully."

"Jacob give you a reason why his brother can't leave the island?" Rose asked.

"He just said that if he did bad things would happen for everyone," Locke told them.

"Which means he doesn't know," Bernard replied.

"Boy's just doing what his mother told him," Rose acknowledged. "And now, he's trying to recruit you because he wants to retire."

"He didn't put it that way, but it does seem like that's the main reason," Locke said. "Only I think for him, retirement means… death."

Rose sighed. "My guess, he just wants some peace. Everyone likes the idea of eternal life. Until they actually have to do it."

"And the other one?" Bernard shook his head. "I don't know which is worse, living forever, or living forever without even a name."

"He wants me to kill Jacob. End of story." Locke told them. "What exactly happens when Jacob dies is, of course, left maddeningly vague, but I can't imagine it would be pretty."

"Are you considering that offer?" Rose said neutrally.

"If he's God, he sure as heck isn't the one that you or Eko or any of our friends believe in," Locke told them. "I never knew my Bible that well, but I'm pretty sure that Jacob's been playing a very loose interpretation to the book of Job with all of us, and I'm not exactly wild about that either."

"I've always been more of a New Testament woman myself," Rose admitted.

"And I admit, you and I in particular have seen some of this island's miracles," Locke told her. "But I have to tell you Rose, I'm having a much harder time working up the kind of forgiveness that you and your husband are capable of. For either of these wretched children with their eternal lives."

"And you're the one who'd probably have the least trouble dealing with this," Bernard reminded him.

"This would probably drive poor Jack up the wall," Locke said with a consideration for his great rival that he'd never really had before.

"None of them would take it well," Rose said, accurately foreseeing the reactions of her fellow survivors.

"And heaven help me, I'm actually starting to feel sympathy for Ben Linus," Locke said sadly. "He spent the better part of thirty years following every order that he was given by Jacob. He never even saw the man he followed. And he doesn't even know that the man he thought was Jacob was actually his sworn nemesis."

"I'm still not willing to see him as anything other than the man who ordered my murder," Bernard reminded him.

"From what I understand, his men fired into the sand. It was another bluff." Locke told him. "He wasn't going to kill you no matter what."

John didn't feel any need to tell Bernard that, given what he had seen at the lighthouse, the orders had probably been not to kill _Sayid and Jin. _ Then again, there was no reason for them not to shoot Bernard under any scenario, and they'd let him live.

"The way I see it, if Jacob is the good guy, then Ben's spent the last decade going to the cabin and listening to the wrong man. On the other hand, if Jacob is the bad guy, then Ben has spent his entire life working for the devil himself. No matter how you slice it, Ben's entire time on this island has been a bad joke."

"I'm a little surprised you wouldn't want to rub it in his face," Rose said quietly. "He put you through hell."

"I followed Jacob blindly knowing nothing. That doesn't make me much smarter." Locke sighed. "Which basically leaves me here. Stuck on an island in the middle of nowhere, with two roads diverging and no idea which one to pick."

"You don't have to pick either," Rose told him. "Way I see you could just live on this island peacefully for the rest of your life. Ignore the whispers in the jungle, and lead the people of this island."

"And tell them what?" Locke said. "For better or worse, the Others have spent their lives on this island convinced that this place is special and that the man who is guarding serves the higher purpose of all. Hell, some of them were passengers on our plane."

Now Bernard got genuinely concerned for the first time. "Have you seen the kids? Are they all right?"

"What, Zach and Emma? They're fine. But…" Locke tried to put into words what he'd seen. "I don't know how it's possible, considering they were barely with the Others for a few weeks. But somehow, it seems they've been totally indoctrinated. They don't ask about their parents any more."

Rose actually got angry at this, and Locke had never seen her upset. "What is up with these people and other people's children? It can't just have to do with some kind of fertility problem."

"I don't know," Locke said sincerely. "They seem to genuinely believe that it's about giving these children a better life. They really think that…"

"Keeping children away from their mother in the middle of the jungle is the right thing to do?" Rose seemed madder then he'd ever seen her. "I'd think as leader of the Others, you should be able to do something about it."

Now Locke did feel guilty. When he'd told Frank Lapidus that anyone who wanted to leave could go with him, he'd forgotten about those passengers who'd now taken sides with the Others. Admittedly, he'd still been in the early stages and had been finding his legs – pun not intended – but he seemed to have basically forgotten that some of the survivors were still on the island.

"I screwed up," he admitted.

"Well, at least you're being honest about it," Rose said in her no-nonsense way. "Now why don't you go and ask the children if they want to go home?"

"I'm not sure that there's a way to do it anymore," Locke said quietly.

"I find that hard to believe," Rose said. "These people have clearly been coming and going from the island for awhile."

"Michael took the boat, remember?" Locke said quietly. "And even if the submarine was working…"

"Wait a minute," Bernard said. "Jack was very clear about you blowing up the submarine. He was rather pissed about it, as I recall."

"Let's just say that, in the end, I didn't trust Ben any more than he did," Locke said. "But I had to make him think I did."

Rose and Bernard looked at each other. "All right. The sub is still there. Why couldn't you use it?"

"It was one thing to maneuver it a few hundred feet. I doubt I could make it all the way across the Pacific," Locke told them. "Not to mention I'm given to understand that you have to follow a very specific course, and if you vary by even a degree, there will be unpleasant side effects. "

"Is there anyone among the natives who could pilot the submarine?" Bernard asked.

"There must be," Locke admitted. "When Ben was giving me his spiel about how important it was I didn't blow up the sub, he wouldn't have been making this argument in the first place if there wasn't someone who could've done it. Assuming" he shuddered, "that person didn't die last year in all our skirmishes with the Others."

Bernard clearly appreciated Locke including himself; after all he'd killed at least three in December. "All right, let's say you can get the submarine working, and that there's someone who can pilot it. Then at least Zach and Emma could go home."

"There is one thing that Ben was very clear on that I do believe," Locke told them. "When I blew the hatch, the sky turned purple, which means there was some kind 0f EMP. When that happened, the instrumental readings this island had with civilization were permanently disrupted. Anyone who left on the sub could never come back to the island."

"And that's what's bothering you the most," Rose correctly surmised. "If you did the right thing, you'd have to leave your paradise."

Hadn't that been part of the reason Locke had tried to justify blowing up the sub in the first place? But considering that he'd basically torn up whatever contract he'd had with himself about anyone leaving the island in the first place, that argument didn't exactly hold water any more.

"I have nothing to go back to," he finally said. "My father's dead; my mother is crazy. I didn't have any real friends or family waiting for me back in the real world. Maybe that's the real reason I seized so hard upon this island being special. Because my life had been so miserable and that this place had given me a miracle – freed me from that wheelchair – that I swore loyalty to it immediately. It would be a betrayal to break that contract."

"Well, in that case John, why don't you go back to Jacob and take his offer?" Rose said. "Maybe this place does it have its flaws, but you care about it. You really could make a difference. You already have."

Indeed, to be the next Jacob seemed to be the destiny he'd spent his whole life looking for. He'd been willing to make the commitment that Ben had talked about so piously. And then it occurred to him the real reason why he was hesitating.

"I'd have to do it forever," he said quietly. "And I've seen first hand what happens to the people who make their lifetime commitments to this island. You become a Ben, willing to sacrifice everyone and everything for the good of someone you've never met. You become a Richard, acting as a go-between, following a master plan your leader has never told you. Or you become Jacob, making everybody dance to a tune that only you can hear for reasons no one else can understand. I may not be any of these people now, but after a few decades, a few centuries," it took him a moment to say the next words, "a few millennia, who knows what I might become?"

"Only you know that much, John," Bernard said gently.

"I've learned a lot in the past year," Locke said slowly. "Oh sure, I've learned about this island, about why I came here, about why this place is important. But I've also learned a lot about myself. And while I doubted myself immensely when I was in the world and I thought I changed, I'm not entirely sure all those changes were necessarily for the better. I may have done some good things recently, but I did some truly reprehensible things in order to do them."

Neither Rose nor Bernard asked him what they were. They probably already knew most of them, and Locke had no intention of sharing the rest. "When James told all of us about Juliet's betrayal, he wouldn't tell us how he got the tape," Rose said slowly. "You gave it to him, didn't you? Even though if it got back to Ben, you would've been done with the Others."

Locke couldn't face her. So he just nodded.

"He said you were following your own path," Rose said quietly. "But that path meant that you still felt a tie to us, didn't it?"

Locke had never truly thought of it that way. "I couldn't let him hurt Claire or Sun," he said quietly.

"You had to know that tape would get back to Jack somehow," Rose kept going. "And whatever happened afterwards, there was probably going to be some bloodshed."

Again, Locke had to admit the basic truth of that statement. If he hadn't intervened, the people at the camp would've been abducted and there would've been deaths – Ethan had demonstrated that very clearly. People _had_ died as a result – in fact, all the Others who went to the camp were slaughtered – but somehow, that had never bothered him as much as the possibility of the people at the camp being killed.

"You may have always thought that you were allied with the island above all else," Bernard picked up the statement, "but despite everything you did, you still were tied to us. So what does that tell you, John?"

The white light flashed before his eyes. Only this time, it was an epiphany. "That Jack's been right this entire time. That unless we live together, we'll die alone." Locke looked at them. "And it just occurred to me that I don't want to do that."

He then spent the next few minutes thinking. "The two of you are very wise, you know that," he finally said. "It seems that you'll be as happy here as I could've been."

"You're going to leave the island, John?" Despite everything he'd just said, Bernard seemed a little surprised by this.

"Not quite yet. I still have some responsibilities that I have to fulfill as leader of my people," John replied. "And I have to ask Jacob some questions that only he can answer."

"You think he will?" Rose asked.

"He knows the only way this works is if I make the right choice," Locke told them. "Which also means I have a question that I need both of you to answer. If both of you say no, then it's all right. I have someone else I want to ask."

"You don't have to, "Rose was smiling in that earth mother way she always had. "Bernard and I are perfectly happy together. And we will always be happy as we are."

"Are you sure?" Locke said. "There's a lot of responsibility, and there may be a lot more coming down the line."

Bernard seemed to have gotten the message as well. "Where Rose goes, so do I."

Locke nodded, and told them where the statue was. "I'll leave at first light. Give me an hour's head start. I may need that much time just to get him to agree. And there's one last thing I'm going to need to work out."

**LLLLL**

Jacob didn't seem surprised to see John at all the next day. "Have you come to a decision?"

Locke didn't answer directly. "Is she alive?"

Jacob didn't react immediately. "Who are you talking about?"

"Pleading ignorance doesn't suit the omniscient," Locke put forth.

Jacob looked out at the water. "She is. She thinks about you a lot ever since the false wreckage was found."

Locke's heart grew a bit lighter just at the thought. "The names that I found on the lighthouse. All of them were Candidates."

Jacob didn't even seem surprised that John knew the term now. "That's right."

"Could someone take your job even if they weren't written down?"

"It's just a name on a wall. If they want the job, it's theirs."

"And once they had it, they would have the same protection from your brother that I do?"

"Absolutely." Jacob finally turned around. "I take it you've decided to pass on my offer."

"I have. But the good news is I've found someone else who's more than willing to accept," Locke said slowly. "But it's a package deal. You have to give your protection to both of them."

If Jacob was at all shocked by this, he gave no sign of it. "You sure they're willing to take on the responsibility?"

Locke turned around. "You can ask them for yourself. The two of them should be getting here any minute now."

"No need to be so impatient, John. We're more than ready," Rose said as she looked into the eyes of Jacob for the first time.


	18. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

Of all the things that John had told them about his time on the island, this may have been the most pleasant shock yet. "So that's why Rose and Bernard stayed behind," Hurley said first.

"I think I realized what everybody who'd been running the island had been doing wrong all this time," Locke said sincerely. "They always tried to go it alone. I got the feeling that Jacob's mother had been guarding the island alone. Maybe if she'd told the two children that she'd been raising as sons, 'you'll have to guard the island together,' none of this violence would've happened. They wouldn't have spent thousands of years trying to kill each other or drag God knows how many people into an endless war."

"And as long Bernard and Rose were together, they would never be alone," Jack shook his head. "I'm just surprised that you finally listened to me."

"I think now that the island is finally behind us, we can accept that if the two of us had respected each other or even trusted each other, most of what happened wouldn't have happened," Locke admitted. "I was right about the island, but you were right about being part of a community."

"And Rose was right about all of it," Jack told them. "I should've trusted her more when she said her husband was still alive."

"Hell, I don't think I'd have bought it til I met the man on the other side of the island," James admitted.

"In all candor, for all his efforts at trying to pick out the right people, I don't think Jacob fully understood what it meant to take on the guardianship of the island," Locke said truthfully. "He was always looking for _someone _to do it. He kept putting the good of the island above the community or even the individual. We were always stronger as a group than we ever were on our own. "

He looked at Sun and Jin. "I never asked him which one of you was the candidate. But maybe under other circumstances, the two of you could've raised Ji Yeon there."

"You know what Juliet told me about pregnant women," Sun reminded him.

"By the way, while you were quizzing the God of the island, did he ever give you an explanation of what exactly happened so that no woman could give birth on the island?" Juliet demanded.

"It wasn't anything he did," Locke told them. "As long as Richard was on the island, there were fifteen babies born on the island. All of them lived passed infancy, and most of them lived a perfectly normal life. It is his belief that when Dharma came to the island, while they were performing their experiments, they did something to poison the life force of the island."

"You mean the incident," Sayid said.

"That was just one of many experiments that they performed that might've disturbed the natural order of things. His words, not mine." Locke said. "According to him, the last time a child came to term on the island was when the two of his people had a son in 1987." He paused. "His name was Karl."

James jumped at that one. "You mean the kid you were keeping in the cage next to me," he told Juliet. "Why the hell was Ben doing that to one of his own people in the first place?"

"Karl and Alex were starting a relationship," Juliet said softly. 'He was afraid Alex would get pregnant."

James shook his head. "Couldn't that guy just have gotten some Trojans on one of his trips off the island?" he whispered to himself.

"So the Dharma people ruined the island for pregnant women," Juliet was more interested in this part of it.

"Perhaps. And in a larger sense, maybe getting rid of them didn't help," Locke admitted. "There was never a successful pregnancy after the Purge. Jacob was very clear on that."

"Maybe he shouldn't have ordered it," Jack told them.

"He didn't. That was a decision that Widmore did pretty much on his own." Locke told them. "Richard acted in concordance with him, but Jacob had not wanted a battle for the island. He said that bloodshed was never what he was about.' He held up his hand. "Jacob had a sanctimonious streak about him. Guess it comes with being immortal."

"So what you're saying is that the problem with the island was never scientific, so much as it was spiritual," Juliet said. "I'm not sure whether that makes me feel better or worse."

"Just consider yourself lucky to be off the island," James slipped his arm around Juliet.

Kate looked at John. "You basically said that you didn't think any one person could've done the job," she said, returning to the previous subject. "If Rose and Bernard had turned you down, who would you have asked to take their place?"

"Danielle and Alex," Locke said quietly. "There would've been a logic to it. Everything that happened on this island was because of a bad relationship between a mother and her children. All Danielle wanted was to be with her daughter again. She'd already said she had no intention of leaving the island. She could've finally had what she always wanted. To have a family."

"What happened to Danielle?" Sayid asked.

"When I last saw her and Alex, they were happy," Locke told him. "And you know that they both experienced very little of it on the island. Rose and Bernard more than understood that they'll be safe."

"I was shocked when she told me that she had no intention of leaving the island," Jack admitted. "I thought after sixteen years she'd just want to go home. I never did understand how anyone could've seen that place as a home."

"I think even among the natives, there was always a fifty/fifty split as to that," Locke told them. "The larger point I was trying to make was that no single one of you could've lived as the next Jacob. Jin and Sun might've been able to raise their daughter there, but I don't think you would've been the kind of parents to tell them there was nothing across the sea."

"I liked the fishing on the island," Jin told them. "And I would've been happy with Sun. But I wanted us to be together _off _the island."

Sun nodded. "Did Jacob ever resolve what happened on the island? Can women carry children to term?"

"The man was always maddeningly vague," Locke admitted. "Rose actually asked the question herself before she took over. All Jacob would say was: 'The island is whole now'. I can't even begin to explain what that means. And honestly, I was focused on other things at the time."

"Like getting off the island," Hurley said. "Speaking of which, how exactly did you do that?"

"After I left Rose and Bernard to go through whatever ceremony Jacob did to pass on the leadership – "

"All that trouble getting there, and you weren't even interested to see whatever decoder ring Jacob was gonna pass on?" James asked incredulously.

"I'd made my decision," Locke said simply. "Whatever advice and procedures Jacob intended to pass on weren't mine to follow. Besides, I was still leader of the Others right then. And I had to give some orders that were, to use a phrase you'd be comfortable with, would make the natives particularly restless."

**WHOOOSH**

**THE TEMPLE**

Richard and Dogen were waiting at the front gate when Locke returned the next night.

"What did he have to say?" Richard asked.

"He explained what my purpose was, why we're here, and what my journey has been about," Locke said slowly. "I would tell you what it was, Richard, but the fact is, in a few hours, there are going to be some major changes on this island. And right now, I believe it is my job to deliver the message before your new leaders come here."

Richard in particular looked a little uneasy when he heard this. "Why are we here?" he said slowly. "Can you tell me that much?"

"All the people who have been brought here were to be considered to be the guardian of this island," Locke told them. "That's what the lists were for. And if Jacob had just been willing to tell us that the first week we were on this island, a lot fewer people would've died. Keep that in mind when you're deciding to follow orders next time."

Richard definitely winced when Locke mentioned that last phrase.

"I realize that I'm the last person to lecture when it comes to following orders blindly," Locke said, louder so that the rest of his people could hear him. "But you really need to understand. I am very disappointed. In all of you. I don't know why all of you came to this island. Out of a greater purpose, I have no doubt. But to believe in the purpose over everything and everyone else, that negates everything we try to do."

"Coming from you, that sounds a bit hypocritical," Lennon said.

"We're all hypocrites. Even Jacob." The reaction was obvious. 'That may sound like blasphemy, but even he'd admit it was the truth. He may have been a great man, but the emphasis should've been on _man _rather than _great._"

"You said you had a message," Dogen was speaking in English.

"There are going to be some big changes on this island very soon," Locke said simply. "Jacob is no longer going to be in charge. Some of his rules will apply. Some of them will not. The most prominent of them is this. Anyone who comes to this island now will come of their own free will. They want to go home, you let them go home. They want to stay, you let them stay. And you tell them why this place is special and why they are here. None of this 'us or them' mumbo-jumbo. Anyone who comes here is a person of the island. No higher, no lower."

There actually seemed to be some nodding and this, though some of the elders – Richard and Dogen in particular – looked a little unsure.

Locke walked over to Richard. "A long time ago, when you first came to this island, you asked Jacob for something. I understand your reasoning for it at the time. So he has a message that you need to hear." He took him by the hand. "You've done your penance."

Richard had been stoic almost the entire time John had known him, but when he heard those four words, he blinked several times. "Does that mean…?"

Locke nodded. "You've done far more than anyone should ever have to do for this island," he said gently. "You will see your wife again. "

Richard turned around, and he was pretty sure that he didn't want anybody to see him weep.

Dogen looked a little more hopeful at this. "You've served the Temple well for a very long enough," Locke said softly. "Jacob knew that he was asking a lot of you when you took this job on. Maybe more than you thought that you had to give." Locke walked over to him. "Your son misses you a great deal. You can go home to him now."

Dogen didn't start crying, but John had known him well enough to see that he too, was profoundly moved by hearing this.

He turned around. "Many of you have served this island for years, to leaders good and flawed. You've all made commitments to this place. All of you have stayed loyal to this island with one rule in place: once here, you can never leave." Locke looked at them. "As of tonight, that rule will no longer be enforced. The rules that he makes for people who come here now apply to you as well. If you wish to stay, you may stay. If you want to leave – even for a brief while – you can do that to."

Now they all looked a little confused. Lennon spoke up. "But leaving the island has always been dangerous, much less returning to it."

"Besides, even with the sub, we don't know how to get our instruments working again," Richard said quietly.

Locke put his hands on his hips. "I find it hard to believe that Ben didn't bother to recruit a group of technical people. You've been manning the Dharma stations ever since the Purge. I know that there are some of you who still know how to work them."

There were a few moments of silence. Then slowly, a couple of hands began to go up.

Locke nodded. "I thought so. The last thing my friends did before they left the island was stop jamming the signals leaving it. How much more effort would it take to get them to work on a larger scale?"

Aldo, who had a certain background in science, raised his hand. "A month, maybe six weeks."

"And connecting the sonar with the submarine back to civilization?"

"A little longer, maybe two months."

"Then as soon as it light, we start working on it. Anyone who knows something about how to work it goes to work." Locke said quietly. "It won't be easy, but now you'll understand just how so many of _my_ people felt when they were trying to leave the island."

There was a clear emphasis on the word _my _that nobody could've missed. Certainly not Richard. "Does that mean you'll be leaving too, John?"

Locke didn't even pause. "I don't think I ever fully understood my place in the world until very recently. I thought this island was my destiny. And maybe it was. But maybe destiny is never as permanent a word as I thought it was. This island was my destiny… for awhile. It was my job to guide it and its people to the right path. And now that I have, I can find something I really didn't. Not even here."

"What's that?" one of the Others asked.

"Peace." Dogen said.

**WHOOOSH**

"I'm guessing they were able to fix everything," Jack said quietly.

Locke nodded. "Ben had always been careful when it came to protecting certain of his people. With the exception of Mikhail, the tech people he recruited over the years did not go to the beach that night. And with the exception of Harper, they all survived Widmore's assault."

"How long did it take to get everything working?" Kate asked.

"About a month. Turns out the desire to go home is one of the most powerful motivators of all." Locke looked at them all, finally fixing his glance on Juliet. "But I'm guessing you all know that by now."

No one could argue with that. "When did you leave?" Sayid asked.

"It was December 1st," Locke said. "We could've left a little sooner, but I held up a few days because there was something that Rose and Bernard wanted to do before everybody left."

"What was that?" Hurley asked.

"The one thing that we never did on the island," Locke said. "And for all I know, maybe it was the first time it happened in the island's entire history."

**WHOOOSH**

November 28, 2005

Rose and Bernard had formally been in charge ever since Locke had given his orders in the Temple. No one had seen Jacob since then. Rose had said that after he had finished the ceremony – she refused to go into more detail and Locke had not pressed her, Jacob had said that he was going to be gone for awhile. Whether that meant he was going to leave the island or walk into the ocean until he could walk no further, Rose didn't know.

"The man has watched this island for more than two thousand years," she had told John. "He's entitled to his peace."

"And what are you going to do about him?" Locke asked.

Bernard answered this time. "We have some ideas. But he's entitled to peace too."

Locke was so relieved that he didn't have to think about just how difficult could be anymore. For all the work he had done for the island, he couldn't believe how glad he was to no longer have it be his problem.

For the next few weeks, he had split his time between helping where he could with the sub and the communications equipment, helping Rose and Bernard acclimate into their new 'job', and just exploring the island. For some reason it seemed even more precious now, knowing that he was about to leave it forever. Maybe it was the fact that the island was no longer the most important thing to him anymore.

Then, just before all the work was about to be done, Rose and Bernard asked Locke if he knew what day it was.

"It's the day before Thanksgiving," Bernard told them. "I always remember that because it's generally a week after Rose's birthday."

Locke shook his head. "I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"What, you would've gotten be something from Neiman Marcus?" Rose joshed. "It's alright. Richard mentioned to me that after all this time, he barely remembers what his birthday is anymore."

"And that doesn't scare you?"

"What was scarier is the possibility that the next birthday you have might be your last," Rose said without any regret. "I told Bernard I'd made my peace with it before our honeymoon, and I thought I had after all the chemo and radiation, but it was a frightening thought."

"And the alternative doesn't worry you," Locke couldn't help but ask.

"Not as long as I have someone who'll always remember it," Rose looked towards her husband. "You _will _remember it next year, right?"

"Every year with you was always a gift," Bernard said. "Now it'll be even more special."

Locke found himself wiping away a tear. He wanted that for himself someday. "You were saying something about Thanksgiving."

"Richard said before that time doesn't matter the same way on the island that is does in other places," Rose said in that matter-of-fact way of hers. "But time should matter. This island should be apart from the world, that's true. But the people here should always remember where they came from. Somehow, I don't think of the Others ever did that."

Locke wondered if he'd done something to influence that. In that long conversation he'd had with Ben before he gone to 'blow up the sub', he'd told him that he and his people were hypocrites for living on the island and yet sleeping in beds and having refrigerators. The next day they'd moved out of the Barracks and back into the jungle.

Now he wondered if maybe Ben hadn't had the right idea. He'd lived on the island for more than thirty years, but most of his people hadn't. They'd gotten used to having some of the accoutrements of civilization nearby, and some of them may never have considered the island 'home', but that didn't mean they didn't think it was any less precious. They were trying to remember where they came from. And for Locke, who had spent every single moment of his life regretting his past, that had been anathema. Maybe he'd been wrong about that.

"What were you thinking about?" Bernard asked.

"Whether Ben was right about some things," John admitted.

"Well, you know what they say about a broken clock," Rose said with a just a trace of humor. Once again, John knew that he'd made the right choice. The woman found forgiveness for the man who tried to kill her husband. "Anyway, there are going to be a lot changes on the island very soon, and I thought the best way to tell everybody how things were going to be was with a celebration. The pallet drop was a week ago, so I figured it might not be the worst idea to have ourselves a little feast."

"And then, when everybody's drunk on Dharma Merlot, tell them about your new plans going forward," John surmised.

"You know what they say about catching more flies with honey than with vinegar," Rose said sweetly.

"They might not know that saying," Locke said, only half in jest. "Under Ben's leadership, I think the only choices they had been between vinegar and cyanide."

"All the more reason to make it clear how different things are going to be," Bernard pointed out. "Also, I asked around. None of these people can remember if there ever was something resembling a celebration on this island."

"Well, if Richard can't remember it, then it never happened," Locke said firmly. "And honestly, that is sad. All the great things about this island, they never seem to have any fun on it. I can understand why we never had any fun, but no one here?"

"The Dharma folk may have some fun," Rose said thoughtfully.

"Maybe that's why they killed them," Bernard replied, only half in jest.

"That's going to be one of my declarations going forward," Rose said sincerely. "Everything on this island can't be all about protecting. You have to have fun occasionally. Otherwise, what's the point of life…anywhere?"

"Well, then you've already proven you're smarter than me," John admitted. "Cause that idea never even occurred to me."

"We already knew I was smarter than you, dear," Rose said gently.

"When are you going to have it?"

"Tomorrow night. Give everybody a chance to prepare. I hope you don't mind but we're going to use the Barracks for it." Over the last few weeks, Rose had supervised the cleaning up of the Others former living quarters. She had said quite simply that living in the jungle was perfectly nice but 'sometimes a body just wants to sleep on a bed." No one was really going to put up an argument, and Locke raised no objections.

"Are you going to have any grand pronouncements?" Locke asked curiously.

"We're still working on a way to negotiate with the Man in Black." Bernard said quietly. "We've reached out to him a couple of times, but he hasn't let himself be seen since your conversation with him."

"In any form?"

Rose shook her head. "Not even as the pillar of smoke. I think he may be as perplexed by the changes as everyone else on the island."

"That may actually be a good thing," Locke said. "If he's thinking, that means he's not killing people."

"There's got to be another answer to that," Bernard said. "Some middle ground that we have yet to find."

"Don't be discouraged. Jacob couldn't find one in two thousand years. No one expects you to have all the answers in a month."

"I know," Rose said simply. "I just think that there has to be some kind of solution for this wasted life."

"You'll come up with something," Locke said. "I have faith."

"You always did, John," Rose reminded him.

John shook his head. "In the two of you."

**LLLLL**

The people on the island were not so much suspicious as they were surprised by their new leaders' plan for the next night. John, however, chose to look upon this as a good thing. He'd rarely seen the Others surprised by anything during the year he'd spent among them, and when they were, they were angry about it. Nobody seemed to really be worried about what would happen from a simple celebratory supper.

Rose and Bernard knew that even though they were supernatural beings, they had no intention of changing their behavior because of it. They asked several of their people to help them the cook for this feast, mainly because neither had cooked for over a hundred people – ever, and as Bernard put it 'we might be Gods, but we're still not the iron chef." John had a suspicion that this was not only to bring everybody together, but for the two of them to get to know the rest of the Others as people, something Jacob had never even considered doing.

The preparation of the meal took the better part of the next day. Rose actually said she'd hoped it would – "makes me feel a little like the parade should be playing in the background." It wasn't a traditional Thanksgiving by any means – there was no turkey in the pallet drop – but Locke had no problem helping with the gathering of food. He caught two boars and helped supervising the catching of several fish for the meal. Considering that just about everything else in the Dharma containers was practically a side dish already, they had everything they needed for the food.

Locke had invited Danielle to the feast, and was shocked but not that surprised to know that Karl and Alex had no idea what Thanksgiving even was. In a sense, he frowned a little on Ben's abilities as a leader and as a parent that he never taught the girl he'd raised as his daughter about holidays. But then, he'd stolen her from her mother when she was an infant, so the bar was pretty low already.

Even after everything that had happened, Rousseau had still been reluctant to come to the Barracks. Locke remembered how she fled when he, Kate and Sayid's 'rescue mission' had led them there. Even with Ben gone, Danielle's old fears of the place still ran deep.

"How are you doing, Danielle?" Locke asked. "There have been a lot of changes for you in the past year."

"All of them pleasant." Locke realized that until her daughter had been returned, he'd never once seen the woman smile.

"The kinds of scars that this place left on you; I can't imagine they'd healed that quickly." Locke said.

"Perhaps not normally," Danielle looked at John. "You always said this place had miraculous qualities. Maybe it just took some time for me to realize all of them."

Locke would've thought that were true, had the island not caused so many of them in the first place. But that had been under the old regime. Maybe things were better now.

"That still doesn't mean the memories and the fears don't linger," Danielle admitted. "Some part of me still doesn't want to accept that things might have changed for the better."

Locke didn't answer directly; just cast his eyes towards Alex.

"I'll be honest. Even now, it's still hard to be with people."

"You were alone for sixteen years, Danielle." Locke reminded her. "No one expected it to change overnight. Even Sayid was never sure, and he trusted you the most."

"It's taken work." She had cleaned up a lot in the past few months. John didn't think Danielle had ever cared about her appearance for a very long time. Perhaps she wanted to look better for her daughter. If she'd known just how much effort her daughter's people had put into _not _looking clean and orderly, maybe she wouldn't have felt so much pressure. But that was _definitely_ not something he was going to tell her.

"Though I'll admit, I'm curious to see where my daughter called home for so long," Danielle said.

"It was just where I lived," Alex said firmly. "It was never really my home."

That remark would've probably caused a huge amount of pain for Ben. That said, Locke still thought it was true. Everything he'd seen about Alex and all of her actions involving Claire and everybody who'd been held at Hydra Island would seem to mean that Alex had never really been an Other.

"Couldn't have been that terrible," Karl said sadly.

"It stopped being my home when Ben decided that he needed to control my life like he ruled his people," Alex said firmly. She looked at Locke. "If it counts for anything, John, you did a much better job leading than he ever did."

"All due respect, your father didn't exactly set the bar that high," Locke said with a trace of humor. "None of his former people seem to miss him that much either."

"Well, they're going to miss you," Alex said quietly. "You sure you want to leave?"

"It's taken me awhile to this decision, Alex," Locke said firmly. "These aren't my people either. And it was never my destiny to lead her. Just to be a placeholder for the right people to take over. This is the best opportunity I'll have to say goodbye."

**LLLLL**

"I'm glad everybody is here," Rose said, after most of the food had been consumed. "Because I thought now would be a good time for me and my husband to explain what's going to happen from this point forward. Hopefully, we will alleviate much of your concerns."

The convivial noise and chatter that had filled most of the meal hushed almost immediately.

"We know this island is a special place," Bernard said slowly. "Some of us have always known that. For some of us, it's taken longer to reach the same conclusion. And perhaps the reason some of us have come to doubt it is because well, we don't want to name names, but your methods of protecting it, leave much to be desired."

"I don't know whose idea it was to treat anybody who came to this island like an invading force," Rose looked around, "even if their airplane blew apart while they were flying over it, but from now, you treat visitors like they were visitors."

"Tom liked the stage makeup," one of them spoke up. "Thought it was suspicious to look neat and polished."

Bernard raised an eyebrow. He had a very good reason to be hostile towards anything Tom would do. "Was it his idea to stick guns in our faces? Kidnap children?"

"Now, now honey," Rose put her hand on Bernard's shoulder. "That was under the previous management. Now they're going to look in the suggestion box." She turned to them. "Doesn't matter if their boat washes up on shore or if they crash on to this place. I got a feeling you got the nickname 'Hostiles' from one of the previous occupiers for a reason. To quote a great sage from my part of the world, next time, try a little tenderness."

They all took this in.

"While were on the subject, there will be no more lists from this point forward." Bernard said firmly. "You will treat everybody on this island the way you would want to be treated. Because as of this moment, we are not going to bring anyone to the island. If they come here, they will be welcomed. You will feed them, clothe them, and maybe even show them the computers you've got around. And you're going to first assume that they want to go home rather than stay on a deserted island in the Pacific. Oh, and they might want to tell the people who think they're lost at sea or crashed in a hot air balloon that they're not dead. Some of them might have family who miss them."

The natives of the island suddenly were all looking at the sand as if it were the most interesting thing in the world they'd ever seen.

"The previous leadership seemed to believe that the island chose for everybody who came here to be here." Rose looked at them. "We intend to alter that way of thinking. From now on, anyone who stays here will choose the island. And you'll know that because you'll ask them."

"This place is special. Everyone who is here right now knows that." Bernard told them. "But you might want to explain some of the minor details about this place to people who are on it. Who these designed these monuments that would not be unfamiliar on an obelisk. Where did these barracks come from and what happened to them. How did you happen to find out about this place? They may not be fun questions to answer, but trust me when I tell you; the people who arrive on this island might consider it need-to-know."

John had never seen so many people lo0king this uncomfortable in their lives. And his fellow survivors had done a lot of shaming in the two months he'd been with them.

"We don't mean this as personal condemnation," Rose said in a more gentle tone. "My husband and I know you've been getting some decidedly mixed messages from up the chain, when you got them at all. But 'just following orders' has never been the best excuse for anything, and certainly not here."

"From now on, the buck stops here," Bernard said sincerely. "You have a question about anything, you come to us first. And we're not going to be living apart from you, like Jacob did. We're going to be living here with you."

"Though it would be nice if we got a place with running water," Rose said lightly.

No one raised an objection or an argument. If anything, most of the people on the island actually looked grateful that they wouldn't have to be following orders blindly based on some command from a deity that they'd never met. Locke knew that if someone had just made this speech to them when they'd all come to the island, a lot of lives would've been spared.

"I know many of you still have questions," Rose told them. 'And when we can answer them, we will. But for now, I think we've had more than enough serious talk. It is time for some music."

And then, at least for Locke, one of the biggest surprises of the night happened. Rose began to sing in one of the most beautiful mezzo voices he'd ever heard. He was pretty sure that most of the others were astonishing to.

Though maybe it was simply because some of them never heard 'The Greatest Love' before.

**WHOOOSH**

Juliet was smiling a little. 'I guess Rose must've found my CD collection."

"Not necessarily," Kate was smiling too. "Her husband is pretty musical herself. That is where you got the 'mix tape', right?" She winked at James, who actually blushed a little.

"As far as I know, Rose always had a good musical ear," Claire said fondly. "Couple of times she actually sang Aaron to sleep and you wouldn't necessarily think gospel would make for great lullabies. But she could pull it off."

Jack looked at Locke. "There any chance will ever see them again? You know, without having to crash over the island."

"Like I said, when they took over maintaining the island, Rose and Bernard changed the rules," Locke said sincerely. "Anyone can come and go from the island as they pleased. As far as I know, that pertained to them as well as everyone else. How exactly they would do it I never quite understood, but they made it very clear that they might see us again someday."

"But you don't think that's going to happen," James had clearly picked up on that the rest of them hadn't.

"I don't think it's going to happen anytime _soon," _Locke picked his words carefully. "Rose and Bernard wanted to make sure they could get the island running under their leadership, and they recognized that it was probably going to take some work. Considering that they time doesn't mean the same thing to them anymore than it does to us, I don't necessarily think they'll show up for, say, Aaron's third birthday or Jack and Kate's anniversary. If for no other reason then they thought, and I quote both of them 'that's a little too close to how the last guy ran the place, and you know how badly he mucked that up.'"

James raised an eyebrow. "'Mucked it up?"

"Rose and Bernard didn't have your mouth, James," Kate reminded him.

"Anyway, the day after that, I said my private goodbyes to Rose and Bernard, and joined the group who were leaving the island. I made damn sure that Zach and Emma were on that sub before I got on it."

"Did anyone ever give a reason why they were taken in the first place?" Hurley demanded.

"There hadn't been children on the island in a very long time," Juliet said sadly. "It was all Ben's doing. I never did figure out how they managed to turn them so quickly."

Jack looked at Locke. "You're leaving one part out, aren't you?"

"One last errand I did. Rose and Bernard did work out an arrangement with Jacob. Something that would solve all their problems. Something that wouldn't occur to Jacob at all."

**WHOOOSH**

Locke walked up to the dock. "You know, for someone who's wanted this since practically the day he was born, you'd think he'd be more interested in leaving."

"I'm just not used to walking on solid ground," the man who had been the smoke monster once said. "I'd think you of all people could appreciate that, John."

John nodded as they walked up to the area the Dharma Initiative had once known as Pala Ferry.

"Once we get to land, you'll have to get to a bank," Locke said. "You do understand how those things work, right?"

"I'm still figuring out how this host thing works, but yeah that's something he was very familiar with."

"According to Richard, these are the accounts that Ben had access to," Locke handed him the bank book and passport that he had spent the last day on the island altering.

"So Dean Moriarty is going to be my name going forward?"

"It's going to be a safer one than Martin Keamy," Locke pointed out.

'Martin' took the folder. "This last maneuver, was it Jacob's idea or Rose's?"

"You wanted to leave the island. I don't think you can afford to be picky as to how."

'Martin' shook his head. "I just wonder it was a dig that the body I'm going to inhabit is probably the most cruel and bloodthirsty of all the people that came to this island."

"Well, he was sent here by a vicious monster, and you're taking on the alias of a man who committed nearly as many horrendous crimes as you did," Locke admitted. "Ironies abound, that's for sure. But there is another way to look at it."

"What's that?"

"Keamy has a lot to atone for. So do you. In a way, this is your best chance to make a clean start. Just live up to your side of the arrangement."

"Believe me, John. Once I'm free of this island, I have no intention of having anything to do with anybody associated with it. And that includes your friends."

Locke nodded.

"I don't understand why you're doing all this, John." The Man in Black said. "After everything I put you and everybody else on this island through all these months – hell, all these years – and you're just going to let me leave?"

"Two days after the plane crash, Jack told Kate that it didn't matter what we were before. Everybody got a clean slate now. And while I'm not a hundred percent sure _he _ever believed it, I think you're entitled to nothing less."

"So you're listening to Jack now?" 'Keamy' raised an eyebrow.

"That's why I'm leaving the island, isn't it?" Locke said calmly.

"And to be honest, I never thought you would," 'Keamy' said.

They reached the opening. "After you," Locke said.

Keamy looked around. "Do convicts feel this way after serving a life sentence?"

"Don't think of it as a sentence. Think of it as an end of one phase, and the beginning of the next."

Keamy looked around several more times, and then began to climb down the ladder.

Locke took a longer look around. It was a great place, this island. It had been a sanctuary, the place of his reawakening and rebirth. It had been his salvation. But it had never been his home. And now, it was time to go back to the real one. To see if he could rebuild everything.

He was reminded of the last thing Desmond had said to him before he had gone down to 'blow the dam', where he had made the biggest mistake of his life. Now, he thought that a slight alteration to it would be fitting.

"If I'm blessed, maybe one day I'll see you in another life," he said.


	19. Epilouge

**EPILOGUE**

**TWO MONTHS LATER**

**ST. SEBASTIANS HOSPITAL**

James was pacing up and down the halls.

"Dude, for the last time calm down," Hurley said, ignoring the fact that he was gripping a bottle of water so tight it was amazing it hadn't snapped in to. "Juliet's got this."

"Were you this upset when I was giving birth?" Claire, as always, was the picture of calm.

"Hell, I didn't know what the hell what was going on in the woods until the munchkin came charging in saying you'd had a boy." James realized what he said. "Sorry."

"It's okay," Claire said. "It's been awhile. Anyway, the point is that was a lot more dangerous. We're in a flipping hospital now."

Nadia's due date was still three weeks away when her water had broke while they were having lunch at Hurley's. Considering just how calm Sayid had been in a crisis almost the entire time that they had known him, it had been almost comical how Sayid had practically jumped into the air knowing that his son was about to be born.

Jack and Juliet, understandably, had taken charge, helped immeasurably by Kate. "I had to see my best friend give birth in an unsterile environment, so you're going to get this ambulance here NOW," she had told 911.

Because this was the way their lives seemed to work, the closest hospital was St. Sebastian, the same one Jack had spent most of his early career with. Fortunately, enough time had gone by so that now people had fond memories of Jack Shephard. He'd managed to persuade them Juliet was more than qualified to help deliver this baby and that he could monitor the situation. However, he couldn't overcome the usual bureaucracy.

"I just can't understand why they wouldn't let us back there," James said, with a level of agitation that, frankly, all of his friends were finding very amusing.

"It's immediate family only, James," Sun, who'd been through this before was projecting calm. "Somehow, I doubt they'd be willing to accept that we're all related to the parents."

"I think considering everything we've been through together, it should rate," James pointed out. "'Sides, less we forget, the Jarrah family was exactly out in force when we came back from the dead in Hawaii."

That in particular had been a sore spot for many of the Oceanics. Sayid had given very few details about his family growing up, even after they came to civilization. He had mentioned his older brother with some fondness, but that was about it. Only through conversations between Nadia and Sun – who more than the rest could sympathize with having a brute for a father – had they been able to get the picture.

Ahmed Jarrah had been considering by the Iraqis as a great hero – which basically meant that he'd been considered an enforcer in putting down civilian uprisings during Saddam Hussein's rule. At home, if anything, he was even worse – frequently beating his wife and his two children. The moment he had been proudest of Sayid came when Omer had been sent out into the backyard to kill a chicken – a test of manhood. When Sayid had been able to do it and Omer had not, he had said: "At least one of my sons will be a man." Sayid had joined the Republican Guard at seventeen, not so much to honor his father, but to get away from him. He had not seen any of his family since.

All of them could sympathize with having cruel parents – Sayid hadn't been the only one in Hawaii who hadn't had any family waiting for him – but Sayid's pain had been so harsh that he'd never even tried to find out if anyone was still alive. Even the usually invasive Jack had let it go.

Michael got up. "We're going to need to be there for him," he pointed out.

"You don't think I know that?" James said softly. "Sayid the Magnificent has had doubts about this ever since he told us Nadia was pregnant. You should probably talk to him first, probably ease his mind."

"We'll talk to him, too," Jin promised, looking at Sun. "Claire?"

"Don't think it'll carry the same way as you guys, but sure," Claire promised. "Besides, Aaron's gonna love having someone else to play with."

Just then, Jack came walking through the double doors. Everybody stood up.

"It's a boy," he said, with one of those smiles that very few people had seen before they had left the island.

Everybody started embracing everybody else – except, of course, James. "And Nadia?"

"Wasn't an easy birth." He looked at his sister. "Present company excluded, of course. But she's resting now, and Juliet says she'll be fine.

Then James did something that no one on the island would've ever taken odds on, because it hadn't happened even after they'd been rescued.

Sawyer hugged Doc. Not for long, but everyone knew how big a deal this was for both men.

"It's just, y'know, every time," James was at a loss for words for once.

"Its okay, James." Jack more than understood.

"How long until we can see them?" Claire asked.

"Little while longer. But we're not going anywhere yet."

Sun looked around. "Where's Kate?" Jack had managed to pull some strings to get his wife to observe, but eventually she'd been forced out.

"She's getting some food from the vending machines," Jack's smile faded a little. "Despite my career, she still has a lot of trouble being in hospital for long periods. Not that I blame her."

A few seconds later, Kate showed up with her arms full of bags of chips and candy bars. "Sorry. I know we can afford better stuff, but we've been here awhile."

Hurley naturally ran over to help her. "It's okay. Sometimes the vending machine stuff is pretty good in these places."

"Trust me, Hugo, no one who comes here ever stops for the cuisine," James said fondly.

Hurley helped Kate hand out crackers and chips and then froze.

"You all right, Hurley?" Walt asked.

Hurley didn't answer for a moment. He was just staring at one of the candy bars in his hand.

Michael got up to help Hurley, and was clearly puzzled. "What's the matter?"

Hurley's face cleared for a moment. "That's right, you never saw them." He handed him one of the chocolate bars.

Michael was still confused. "Apollo chocolate. I still don't get it."

"They were, like, the official candy bar of the Dharma Initiative," Hurley told them. "I'd never heard of them before I came to the island. And now, they're in this hospital's vending machine?"

Now most of the others were confused. "I get why this would freak you out a little, Hugo," James said reassuringly, "but I'd heard of them before the island."

Hurley looked a little calmer. "Really?"

"They sold them at the A & P down in Memphis. 3 for a dollar, I think."

"Yeah, they've been around while. They were in the machine when I was a resident," Jack told him.

"I think they even had them for sale on the flight," Sun added.

Now Hurley seemed back to his old self. "Then I'm just a little shocked I never heard of them before. As you no doubt know, I'm kinda familiar with chocolate in all its forms."

"Well, they were kind of low budget when I bought them," James said thoughtfully. "Always thought that they were a poor man's Hershey bar. Even I would save up money rather than buy Apollo."

"Maybe Dharma got 'em at a discount," Kate said. "Anyway, once we've finished our snacks, I figure we can see how the proud father and mother are doing."

"I'll call them Desmond and Penny, let them know the good news," Jack said. "Anyone know where John is?"

At that moment, John and Helen emerged. "Sorry about that," Helen told them. "My husband insisted on getting this finished before he showed up."

"I'll be honest," Locke said quietly. "It's still not a lot of fun being in a hospital, even on a pleasant occasion."

"I get it, John, I do," Jack said. He looked at the package that John was carrying. "This what you've been working on the last few weeks?"

"Say what you will about the island, Jack, at least it was a lot easier to find a place with few distractions."

"You mean aside from the Others trying to eat us?" Hurley reminded him.

Locke smiled. "Yes, I'm aware of the irony of that statement, Hugo. What can I say? When you're in a place of religious mania, everything seems easier by comparison."

"Well, at least you're admitting it was a mania," Kate said simply

"It's easier to cure when you yourself diagnose the problem." Locke admitted. "So I understand mother and child are doing alright? How's the father holding up?"

"He's doing all right so far." Everybody stopped in their tracks as Juliet emerged, taking off her cap and rubbing her hands through her hair. "But then again, Sayid never exactly wore his heart on his sleeve."

James walked over to his wife and embraced her. "Hell of a way to come back from our honeymoon," he said gently.

"Actually, it's probably as good a way as I could hope for," Juliet said fondly. "It's always nice to give good news to a friend. Granted, I might not have wanted to get as hands on my first week back, but still…"

"I think we're all grateful you were here anyway," Jack said. "As for Sayid, he may keep up a poker face when it comes to serious matters, but he definitely wore his emotions when he cares about someone. "

James looked a little solemn, and looked at Juliet. "He's gonna need some help going forward, and since the best I can come up with is a more respectful nickname, we were going over how to help him."

"Just the fact that you know he needs help shows you're more qualified than you think, James," Locke said softly. "As for the rest, it'll probably help that this child already has a group of playmates waiting for him already."

Claire looked at Hurley. "Speaking of which, you make any progress on our project?"

Hurley looked at her. "There's always a lot of paperwork, even for something as simple a day care center. My guy tells me another two weeks and we should be ready to open."

By now, the survivors of Oceanic had gotten to the point that they knew their children could no longer remain as insular as they had been. Claire had suggested trying to form a playgroup with the survivors' children as founding members. Aaron and Ji Yeon would be in the toddler section, and they would try to spread out from there. There would be no advanced tuition, no extra security: it would just be a safe place for children – something everybody who had survived the island knew was vital for all of them.

"Okay, how many of us can go back there?" Kate asked.

"Sayid's still looking after Nadia," Juliet said firmly. "My guess is only two of us who aren't in the medical community could get away with going back there."

"You want to draw straws?" James said, half in jest. "I'm kidding. I think we all know who the first two people the new parents should see."

**LLLL**

Sayid looked up when Juliet knocked on the door five minutes later. "Everybody has the good news, but you have two visitors who insisted on seeing you first."

A small smile crossed Sayid's face as Claire and Sun, properly gowned, entered their suite. "Don't mind me, I just wanted to see what an actual maternity ward looked like," Claire said softly.

"I was too doped up to remember what mine looked like," Sun said.

Nadia looked up with a grin on her face. "You're bad liars. You just wanted to see what Sayid looked like when he was completely happy."

"They were at our wedding. They already knew that much," Sayid said with a fondness that neither remembered hearing that often on or off the island.

The two women walked over to Sayid, who was cradling his son. "Have you decided on a name yet?" Sun asked gently.

"We each decided to name him after someone we'd lost," Nadia told them. "To remind us. I'm naming him after my older brother, Najeev."

"And his middle name will be Boone," Sayid said quietly.

Both Claire and Sun's eyes grew moist at the mention of the first real casualty of their time on the island. "That's very noble," Claire said after swallowing.

"Can we have a moment with your husband?" Sun asked Nadia.

Sayid and Nadia exchanged the kind of glance that she realized was of the same type that she and Jin had exchanged over the years. Nadia took Najeev in her arms.

The three of them walked into the hall outside the suite. "Jack sent you to check on me, didn't he?" Sayid said gently.

"Actually, it was James," Claire told him. "The two of you have come a long way since your fighting over who was the prisoner."

"I'm still amazed he ever forgave me for sticking a knife in his vein," Sayid's smile faded. "And its things like that which make me wonder what kind of father I'll be."

"I was terrified about what kind of mother I'd be," Claire reminded Sayid. "Right up until five minutes before I gave birth, I was convinced that Aaron thought I didn't want him. Kate can testify to that."

"I felt the same way." Claire must've seemed a little surprised at Sun's words. "Because of who _my _father was."

"If being on that island convinced us of anything, Sayid," Claire reminded him. "It's that we have to let go of what our parents did to us. Family isn't genetic. It's who we become, and the friends we make along the way."

"And what about the things we did that weren't our parents fault?" Sayid asked.

"We have to try and let that go to," Sayid was a little shocked to see that Locke was there. "Not forget it, even though that would save us a lot of pain. See it as steps along our journey. Steps that lead you to the place that you were meant to be. And trust me, Sayid. You were meant to be a good man."

Sayid shook his head. "Nadia keeps telling me that."

"Well, then your wife is a very wise woman," Locke said."

That got a real smile from Sayid. "So what's in the package?"

"That would be a real life birthday present for your son," Locke said.

Sayid was a little surprised, and even more surprised when he saw it.

"To answer the question that's no doubt on your mind, I didn't bring this with me from the island," John told Claire. "I guess I'm just not that original when it comes to gifts."

Indeed, the gift was a handmade cradle, much like the one that Locke had built for Aaron just a few days before he was born. But Locke had clearly spent longer on it because he wanted it to look nicer. The wood was varnished, the edges were buffed, the bars were narrower. The resemblance looked much more like one you'd find at a far better furniture shop, but you could still tell that John had put a bit of his soul into it, much like the one he'd done for Claire almost three years earlier.

"Honestly John, I wouldn't have minded if you'd re-gifted," Claire said softly. "It would've been a tradition that I would've been proud to uphold."

"It never even occurred to me to bring it," Locke said sincerely. "Like so many other things on the island, it had served its purpose. And I figured for a new life, it should have a fresh start. After all, that what's we all came back for."

Sayid gave a real smile. 'It would've made more sense to bring that to our home first."

"I know," Locke admitted. "I just wanted you and Nadia to see it first. And now that I've shown it to you, I would be honored if I could meet your son."

"It's going to be a little crowded for visitors," Claire said, half in jest.

"He's not a visitor," Jack had clearly been watching for awhile. "He's a friend, and we all need more of those."

Locke looked at Jack. "You mean I've been upgraded," he said with a smile.

"I think we passed that point when I told you I believed that you were right about pretty much everything," Jack said fondly. "It's going to take awhile to make things completely right for us, but soon enough, you'll be back in the real world. Where you always belonged."

"Hey, Blondie," James said slowly. "Could you check online? I think there's a very good possibility hell has officially frozen over."

"If it didn't when you and Jack started to become besties, I don't think it ever will," Kate said with a smile.

Jack looked like he might be blushing. "Did everybody hear that?" he said, as he looked around to see that the remainder of the Oceanics had assembled a few feet behind him.

"We came to see our friend's newborn son," Jin told them.

"The Kodak moment was just a bonus," Hurley added wryly.

"In any case, I think we've all had enough Hallmark moments," James said.

"Don't count on it, James," Michael reminded him. "We're about to go into a room with a newborn. The women – especially the moms are all going to ooh and aah for three minutes, and every man is probably going to try really hard not to let the grin eat their entire face. I guess you've been spared that so far."

"Jin the protector wouldn't let me see Aaron, and they were on the other side of the world when Ji Yeon was born, " James reminded him. "So I haven't had that much experience with the after party." His smile faded.

Michael looked at James. "You okay?"

"Just thinking of something I did in my bad old days," he said quietly. "I'll tell you tonight." His smile returned. "I don't want to spoil the mood."

"I kind of thought that was your job on the island," Claire said with a smile.

"Like Buddha said," James told him with his old humor, "another of those things that I left on the island that will not be missed."

"You'd think after everything that had happened on the plane crash," Jack said slowly, "we would have been able to leave all our baggage behind. Kinda sad even after that crash it took us this long to get rid of it all."

"Why Jack," Locke said, with a trace of humor, "you almost sounded like me there."

"So I did," Jack said. "Guess you're starting to rub off on me too."

"This is a nice moment, but maybe we could all go and see Sayid's son before the kid goes through his adolescence," Kate said. When everybody looked at her, "What? You really think I could spend that much time around Sawyer and not start to have him rub off on me?"

"As a matter of fact, that's…"

"James, before you finish that sentence, please remember how handy I am with a scalpel and forceps," Juliet said sweetly.

"Let's see Sayid's kid," James said quickly, bringing his legs together like that.

Laughing and smiling, the Oceanics walked down the hall into Sayid's room.

None of them noticed a woman who had been wearing a surgical mask just a few feet away. She very quietly walked down the hall, and headed towards the back exit.

She took out a small cell phone once she was out of sight of them. "Perfectly healthy boy, five pounds, four ounces. Mother and father are doing okay."

"I told you, Rose, there was nothing to worry about," said the voice on the other end.

"Yes, you were right as always, sweetie," Rose said fondly. "And the rest of them are all doing well."

"Wish I could've made this trip," Bernard said sweetly.

"One of us needs to keep an eye on the place for now," Rose said smartly. "Don't worry, honey. You can come on the next trip."

"Can't wait to see you."

"Don't worry about that," Rose said. "We have all the time in the world."

**THE END**

_This story is inspired by the work of Stefanie Bean and Red Bess Rackham ._

_This time, I'm not going to leave you hanging. There _will _be another story in this series. It'll be less mystical and more grounded in reality, with characters from a different fandom getting involved. It won't come for awhile – I have another series I want to work on for a bit – but I'll get back to it sometime next year. This series has become one of my great pleasures to work in, and, from what I've read, most of you like it too._

_See you soon. Until then, Namaste_

_David_


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